We would like to hear from people in British Columbia and Washington State in particular on their experiencesTens of thousands of people in Canada and the US have been left without power after a large storm hit the Pacific north-west. British Columbia and Washington State in particular have been affected by flooding and landslides.Whether you live or work in the area, or are helping with search and rescue efforts with the emergency services, we would like to hear from you. Continue reading...

Eighteen months after she lost her son to opioid addiction, the singer-songwriter has released a new album. She talks about her troubled childhood, the happiness she has found with her wife – and her refusal to grieve‘Helloooooh! How are you? I’m good, I’m good.” It takes me about three seconds to warm to Melissa Etheridge. The American singer-songwriter has been through hell in the past few years, but you won’t find her moaning. For someone who has endured so much – Etheridge lost her 21-year-old son, Beckett, to opioid addiction last year – she has a remarkable ability to accentuate the positive. And over the next hour and a half, she does just that.There is a swaggering self-confidence and a soulfulness to Etheridge – she would make a great existential cowboy. She has had hit records across the world (with the notable exception of the UK), won Grammys for her singles Ain’t It Heavy and Come to My Window, and in 2007 secured an Oscar for I Need to Wake Up, a song she wrote for Al Gore’s climate crisis documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron and the far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen look set to be joined by numerous other candidates in the French presidential election. We look at the latest polling, and introduce some of the most likely candidatesFrance will vote to elect a new president in April, and the jostling for position among potential candidates is well under way. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, has yet to declare his candidacy but is expected to run again. His second-round opponent from 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has already launched her campaign. Alongside them on the ballot will be Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, Yannick Jadot, representing the Green movement, and a candidate from the centre-right, to be chosen by Les Républicains, on 4 December. The far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who has no political party, could declare an outsider bid. Continue reading...

Zhang Zhan’s former lawyer says authorities are sending message, as calls grow for release on medical groundsThe detention of Zhang Zhan, the Chinese journalist jailed after reporting on the Covid pandemic in Wuhan, is intended as a “warning to others”, her former lawyer has said, as calls grow for her emergency release on medical grounds.Hundreds of Chinese human rights lawyers and citizens have put their names to an open letter calling for immediate medical care for Zhang, who her family fear is close to death. Zhang has been on a hunger strike for more than a year in protest at her persecution for reporting on the Wuhan lockdown in early 2020. Continue reading...

Mark McGowan closes electorate office and condemns ‘deranged’ behaviour of anti-vaxxers; Victorian pandemic powers bill debate postponed; search for remains of missing NSW boy William Tyrrell enters fourth day; no new Covid cases in Northern Territory as cluster stands at 19; Victoria records 1,007 new cases and 12 deaths; NSW records 262 new cases. This blog is now closed

In a definitive new documentary, a deeper look at the much-loved movie star provides more insight into ‘one of the greatest rags-to-riches stories ever told’When a normal person ascends to the firmament of fame, their sense of identity is split in two. The self-perception they’ve developed over their life up to that point – the ‘true’ self, allowed to emerge in intimate moments – must contend with an outward-facing image over which they can exert unsettlingly minimal control. The more canny-minded celebrities seize the reins of their own PR by cultivating a persona they can get out in front of, caricaturing themselves before someone else gets the chance.Charlie Chaplin, perhaps the first A-lister to contend with this existential quandary of exposure, went one step further by inventing a character he could plaster over himself. The Real Charlie Chaplin, a new documentary in cinemas this week, posits his Little Tramp alter ego as a shield and veil. If audiences were looking at the bowler hat, toothbrush mustache, and rubbery cane, they’d never see the man wearing them. Continue reading...

As he begins a West End run in the musical Cabaret, the It’s a Sin star talks about his part in breaking down racial and sexual barriers in theatre and TVOmari Douglas is a natural performer in the truest sense. We meet in the rehearsal space, where he’s preparing for a new production of Cabaret alongside Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne at London’s Playhouse theatre. Although we’re cutting into his lunch break, the 27-year-old actor – and current favourite to be the next star of Doctor Who – gesticulates enthusiastically as if he’s used to being permanently on stage. “I’ve always admired how television and film can bring audiences together,” he beams.The Playhouse’s Cabaret is the latest in a long line: the 1966 musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb was inspired by John Van Druten’s classic 1951 play I Am a Camera, which was itself an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. These facts are relayed to me by Douglas at breakneck speed; the actor has seen Cabaret three or four times. He is now stepping into the leading role of Clifford Bradshaw, a lost American novelist who arrives at Berlin’s seedy Kit Kat Club. “I’d never envisioned myself as a Cliff,” he says. “But we’re being given the space to find something new.” Continue reading...

Matthew Heineman’s gruelling new film The First Wave takes us back the terrifying early stages of a world-changing virusIt is tempting to suggest that the Covid deniers, the hoaxers, the hucksters, the anti-vaxxers, the flat earthers, the merchants of disinformation and the crackpot conspiracy theorists be strapped into a chair and force fed The First Wave, a harrowing documentary about the early toll of the coronavirus pandemic.Covid-19 has never been a “media-friendly” story: death and suffering happen in intimate spaces behind closed doors, where few cameras or reporters are permitted. It is therefore less spectacular news than the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, even though the current loss of life is still equivalent to a 9/11 every three days. Continue reading...

British Columbia premier declares a state of emergency amid the flooding which has killed one person with more deaths expected

High court ruled in secret hearing in September that Philip’s will should be hidden from public for 90 yearsLegal action against the attorney general and the Queen’s private lawyers has been initiated over a decision to ban media organisations from a court hearing about the Duke of Edinburgh’s will.The Guardian is seeking permission to argue that the high court’s failure to properly consider whether the press should be allowed to attend the hearing or make representations constitutes such a serious interference with the principle of open justice that the case should be reheard. Continue reading...

• Reconstruction after Covid: a new series of long readsIt’s easy to despair at the climate crisis, or to decide it’s already too late – but it’s not. Here’s how to keep the fight aliveThe world as we knew it is coming to an end, and it’s up to us how it ends and what comes after. It’s the end of the age of fossil fuel, but if the fossil-fuel corporations have their way the ending will be delayed as long as possible, with as much carbon burned as possible. If the rest of us prevail, we will radically reduce our use of those fuels by 2030, and almost entirely by 2050. We will meet climate change with real change, and defeat the fossil-fuel industry in the next nine years.If we succeed, those who come after will look back on the age of fossil fuel as an age of corruption and poison. The grandchildren of those who are young now will hear horror stories about how people once burned great mountains of poisonous stuff dug up from deep underground that made children sick and birds die and the air filthy and the planet heat up. Continue reading...

The pandemic has sparked a surge in people leaving their jobs. But if you aren’t one of them, how do you survive the tumult – and even flourish? Here is the expert advice on how those left behind can prosperIn the US, they are calling it the great resignation or (my preference) the big quit. In the UK, the language is less portentous, but the reality is similar: there are more vacancies than jobseekers. Nearly 1.2m jobs were open in the UK in the most recent quarter, with 15 of 18 sectors reporting record numbers.People cite all kinds of reasons for quitting – they want a better work-life balance, they want more challenges, better conditions, more meaning. But what about those left behind? How do you stop your own career getting trampled as your colleagues race out the door? What’s the best way to deal with the void left by your familiar co-workers, not to mention the workload? How do you manage your Fomo and quarry some advantage out of the situation? Continue reading...

The North Carolina novelist has won the National Book Foundation’s award for fiction for his dark absurdist novelThe North Carolina writer Jason Mott has won the National Book Foundation’s 2021 prize for fiction, for his novel Hell of a Book.The US foundation’s 72nd annual awards, presented online only due to Covid-19, were announced on Wednesday night. Continue reading...

How the humanitarian crisis playing out on the border of Poland and Belarus became the latest front in the battle between President Lukashenko and the European UnionThousands of men, women and children seeking asylum are trapped in freezing conditions between hostile forces in the borderlands that separate Belarus from Poland and the European Union. They have come mainly from the Middle East, fleeing poverty and conflict in places such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. But rather than being welcomed they face destitution and even death in the freezing November conditions.Polish riot police have fired water cannon and teargas at people forcibly attempting to cross into Poland. The clashes came after EU governments approved sanctions against the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for allegedly engineering the crisis by allowing thousands of asylum-seekers from the Middle East to travel through Belarus to the border with Poland. Continue reading...

Philippines voices its ‘outrage and condemnation’, saying actions by coastguard in South China Sea were illegalChinese coastguard vessels have blocked and used water cannon on two Philippine supply boats heading to a disputed shoal occupied by Filipino marines in the South China Sea, drawing an angry protest from Manila.The Philippines’ foreign secretary warned on Thursday that its vessels are covered under a mutual defence treaty with the United States. Continue reading...

Angela Merkel calls for an extra push on vaccinations; Belgium tightens restrictions as cases rise in fourth wave

Maternal grandparents in Israel have appealed in latest round of custody battle with paternal relativesIsrael’s supreme court has ordered a freeze on returning a six-year-old boy who survived a cable car crash in Italy to his relatives there until it decides whether to hear an appeal by family members in Israel.Eitan Biran’s parents and younger sibling were among 14 people killed in May when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy. His maternal grandparents in Israel and his paternal relatives in Italy are locked in a bitter custody battle over him. Continue reading...

Function in London cancelled over ‘due diligence’ of Zemmour, who has convictions for inciting racial hatredLondon’s prestigious Royal Institution has cancelled an event at which the far-right French TV pundit Éric Zemmour was due to speak on Friday.Zemmour, who has convictions for inciting racial hatred, is due to arrive in London on Thursday as he ponders a potential run in France’s presidential elections next year. Continue reading...

Senior judges said deporting Polly Gordon, 75, would disproportionately interfere with her human rightsA 75-year-old American woman who uses a Zimmer frame and is unable to digest solid food, has won her appeal to remain in the UK after living here for 53 years.The Home Office attempted to deport Polly Gordon after she served a 12-month sentence for supply of a controlled drug. She was convicted of the offence in July 2019 at Edinburgh sheriff’s court. According to a judgment in the immigration tribunal she has a past history of substance abuse and addiction to alcohol. Continue reading...

In the powerful new documentary Simple As Water, the lives of families escaping war to be stranded across the globe are sharedI was a refugee as a child, towed along by family as we escaped war in Sri Lanka. My memory of the whole ordeal is vague. There were stops that lasted weeks and months, as we were left in limbo in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Vancouver, before finding home in Toronto.You meet a lot of people throughout such journeys, fellow migrants you live with for a time at refugee camps or shared apartments. They come in and out, leaving behind disjointed and scattered stories, memories of transit without a beginning or end. Simple As Water, a mosaic-like HBO documentary about Syrian refugees, affectively evokes that sensation. Continue reading...

Archbishop of Canterbury clears late bishop of Chichester despite CoE paying compensation over sexual abuse claims in 2015The archbishop of Canterbury has apologised for saying there was a “significant cloud” over the name of one of the most venerated figures in the Church of England who was accused of sexual abuse.In a move that may end a protracted and acrimonious battle within the C of E over the reputation of George Bell, a bishop of Chichester and a leading 20th-century figure, Justin Welby issued a personal statement admitting his earlier position had been wrong. Continue reading...

Sum sent back home from former residents of low-income countries surpasses overseas aid and rich nations’ direct investmentMigrants from low- and middle-income countries are expected to send almost £600bn to support friends and relatives by the end of the year, after global economic growth spurred a 7.3% rebound in remittance payments.The increase in cross-border payments, especially from migrants based in Europe and the US, reversed a 1.7% fall in remittance payments last year, the World Bank said. Continue reading...

Warning comes as police fire teargas and deploy water cannon against people trying to cross into PolandPoland’s defence minister has said the crisis on the Belarusian border could last for months, as Alexander Lukashenko claimed he had agreed to direct talks with the European Union on solving the crisis.The agreement was reported by Belarusian state media, which said that Lukashenko and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, spoke on Wednesday for the second time this week. Continue reading...

Monarch, 95, greets outgoing military chief in sitting room, after pulling out of Remembrance Sunday serviceThree days after a sprained back caused her to miss the Remembrance service at the Cenotaph, the Queen was back on her feet, albeit in danger of being upstaged by her beloved dog, Candy.As the 95-year-old monarch was filmed carrying out a face-to-face audience at Windsor Castle with Gen Sir Nick Carter, Candy waddled up to the chief of defence staff as he entered the castle’s Oak room. Continue reading...

Belarus’s engineered migrant crisis.

Official newspaper calls Truss ‘radical populist’ after her alleged row with Caroline Wilson over UK’s hard lineAn official Chinese newspaper has weighed in on an alleged spat between the British foreign secretary and the UK’s ambassador to China, suggesting Liz Truss was “a radical populist” and quoting Chinese internet users calling the UK “Little Britain”.The alleged row between Truss and Caroline Wilson, the British ambassador to China, was first reported by the Times early this month. Continue reading...

The pandemic may have separated us, but it has created alliances too. Five diverse pairings share their stories

MoD says pilot of jet from the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth ejected safelyA British F35 pilot flying from the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier was forced to eject during a routine operation over the Mediterranean, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.The pilot was picked up but the £100m plane crashed into the sea during the incident, which took place at about 10am UK time. No other vessels or aircraft were involved, defence sources added. Continue reading...

Far-right TV pundit on trial for calling unaccompanied child migrants ‘thieves, killers and rapists’Éric Zemmour, the far-right TV pundit who is preparing to run for French president claiming that Islam and immigration are destroying France, has gone on trial in Paris on charges of incitement to racial hatred.The case relates to remarks the 63-year-old polemicist made on television last year when he called unaccompanied child migrants “thieves, killers and rapists”. Continue reading...

Pair spotted inside ancient Roman amphitheatre at 5.30am chatting over drinksTwo American tourists have been fined after breaking into the Colosseum, reportedly to experience the pleasure of having a beer inside the ancient Roman amphitheatre.The pair, aged 24 and 25, climbed on to the second tier of the monument in the early hours of Monday morning. They were spotted at about 5.30am, chatting over their drinks, by a passerby who alerted police. It is unclear how they managed to enter the monument, which closes to the public at 4.30pm. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Political clans in UK and elsewhere profess mutual loathing but often align on substance of debatesPeople are divided more deeply by identity than by issues, according to a survey that suggests culture wars are fuelled mostly by partisanship and that voters have more in common than many think.The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in particularly polarised countries including the US and UK, political clans that profess mutual loathing often align on the substance of debates, even in highly charged areas such as sexism and racism. Continue reading...

Specialist Met officers called in after rented vehicle left outside venue hosting Israeli ambassadorA car rented by Bedfordshire police was the subject of a bomb scare after it was parked outside an event in central London that was due to be attended by the Israeli ambassador.The vehicle had five of its windows smashed in by a specialist team from the Metropolitan police before officers realised it was being used by another force. Continue reading...

Rosamund Pike, who stars in Amazon Prime’s forthcoming take on Robert Jordan’s fantasy series, says his female characters are role models. Really?What is going on with Amazon Prime’s characterisation of The Wheel of Time? I ask this as a fantasy fan, someone who not only adores the classy stuff (NK Jemisin, Guy Gavriel Kay etc) but has also devotedly ploughed her way through The Belgariad, most of Terry Goodkind (until it got too crazy even for me) and Simon R Green. And how many people involved with the forthcoming adaptation have actually marathoned their way through all of the books?My eyebrows were first raised back when the deal to adapt Robert Jordan’s extremely long series was announced in 2018, when head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke praised its “timely narrative featuring powerful women at the core”. Now, I read these books in my late teens, but my resounding memory of them was not of “powerful women”. In fact, I remember thinking Jordan’s depiction of women was pretty dismal – he might have packed in far more female characters than Tolkien ever did, but they’re constantly objectified, forever hoisting their bosoms around, adjusting their skirts – even getting spanked as punishment. Continue reading...

At the start of the pandemic, Seoul pursued a zero Covid policy. The country has been reaping the benefits ever sinceWith winter approaching, it’s time to talk about the optimal Covid-19 strategy again – and for that, we need to look once more at what’s happening in South Korea.It has vaccinated 79.2% of its population with two doses, and, if it continues administering 220,000 doses a day, will have covered almost 90% of its population by the end of the year. Compare this to the UK, where 68.6% of the population has received two doses, and the US, where this figure is at 58%. If we compare deaths, the numbers are even more shocking. South Korea has suffered only 3,137 from a population of 51.8 million. For the UK, the corresponding figures are 142,945 deaths from a population of 67.2 million, while in the US there have been 783,575 deaths from a population of 329.5 million. In addition, in the first quarter of 2021, South Korea became one of the first high-income countries to see its economy recover to pre-pandemic levels, after it managed to only experience a 1% contraction in GDP in 2020 (the second-best performance behind China).Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Connemara has inspired film crews, writers and maharajahs with its wild mountains and endless expanses of sky and seaWhen I was 20 and straight out of teacher training college I took a job in a school in Connemara for a year. My friends were heading for the bright lights of Dublin, but after a childhood of caravan holidays along Ireland’s west coast I was drawn to the “wild mountainous country” of west Galway beloved of Oscar Wilde and countless other artists and untamed spirits.Instead of the indoor excitement of city life, I spent the year knee-high in bogs, scrambling up the Twelve Bens, island-hopping to Inishbofin and Inishark and pedalling along deserted roads to the show-stopping beaches at Glassilaun and Rossadillisk. A sign on the road for Rossadillisk beach read “Welcome to Paradise”. I learned to ride on Connemara ponies at Errislannan and on weekends I’d hitch lifts to random events in Letterfrack, involving local poets, map makers and sculptors who breathed life into this quiet corner of Ireland. With no advance planning, I’d find myself at the summit of Diamond Hill or spotting porpoises at Renvyle beach with a gang of newfound friends. Continue reading...

Eton and Harrow among those whose ‘character-building’ qualities were admired by German educators in 1930s and 1940sNazi Germany’s elite schools, which were set up to train future leaders of the Third Reich, used British private schools such as Eton and Harrow as their models, a new book reveals.The historian Helen Roche has written the first comprehensive history of Nazi elite schools, known as Napolas. Drawing on research undertaken in 80 archives in six countries as well as testimonies from more than 100 former pupils, Roche discovered just how keen the Nazis were to learn from the “character-forming” example of the British system. Continue reading...

The beef industry hopes a planned deforestation-free farming zone will tempt buyers back but many fear it will drive up illegal tree fellingFor many, the overriding image of agriculture in the Amazon is one of environmental destruction. About 80% of deforestation in the region has been attributed to cattle ranching, tainting beef exports.Brazil’s beef industry hopes to tempt buyers back to the Amazon region, which covers about 40% of the country’s total area, with a new deforestation-free pledge. But critics are concerned it could effectively legalise deforestation in the region. Continue reading...

Anas Zein Al-Abdeen owns a chain of four Middle Eastern coffee houses around Birmingham. But, the 40-year-old says, while customers are plentiful, staff are another matterAnas Zein Al-Abdeen doesn’t want to close his business for three days a week – but, increasingly, it looks like his only option. He simply can’t get the staff. “It’s horrific,” he says. “We can’t plan for anything.”The 40-year-old British-Syrian businessman runs Damascena, an independent chain of four Middle Eastern coffee houses in and around Birmingham. All of his cafes are affected, but the one in central Birmingham is the most short-staffed, with 25 workers instead of the usual 30. “It’s very stressful,” he says. “Most businesses worry about getting customers. But I’m just worried if we can serve them or not.” Continue reading...

Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci stars Lady Gaga in a tale of fashion and murder. But is true crime – once the soul of cinema, from thrillers and horrors to westerns – now outgrowing the big screen?What took you so long, House of Gucci? This story was destined to become a movie from the moment the bullet left fashion heir Maurizio Gucci dead outside his Milan office in March 1995 – shot, a witness said, by a hitman with a “beautiful, clean hand”. The film by Ridley Scott now finally arrives dripping with star power, and Lady Gaga as Gucci’s ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani. But the story alone was enough: a glittering tickbox of money, revenge and a villainess kept company in jail by an illicit pet ferret called Bambi.True crime gold. So why, now that the film is actually here, does the Gucci case feel a strange fit for a movie after all? Put it down to timing. The film’s development began in entertainment prehistory: 2006. Back then, a lavish movie was still the grand prize for any news story, and true crime – that trashbag genre – would simply be glad of the association. Now though, film and true crime have the air of an estranged couple. Had Maurizio Gucci been gunned down on Via Palestro last week, Netflix would already have the rights and the podcast would be on Spotify. Continue reading...

Analysis contradicts Priti Patel’s claim that 70% are single men who are economic migrants to UKNearly two-thirds of people who migrate to the UK in small boats are deemed to be genuine refugees and allowed to remain, a report says, in an apparent contradiction of past statements by the home secretary, Priti Patel.Analysis using Home Office data and requests under freedom of information laws has concluded that 61% of migrants who travel by boat are likely to be allowed to stay after claiming asylum. Continue reading...

Police and security services have yet to find an ideological motive behind Emad al-Swealmeen’s alleged attackInvestigators have not ruled out concluding that Emad al-Swealmeen’s alleged attack on Liverpool Women’s hospital had “no ideological or political motive” and was therefore not an act of terrorism.Counter-terrorism police and security services inquiries continue but as the inquiry entered its third day, investigators were not yet pointing to any specific ideology behind the explosion on Sunday morning. Continue reading...

Japan’s world No 1 joins other athletes in voicing concern for Peng, who has not been seen since accusing ex-vice-premier of sexual assaultWorld No 1 tennis star Naomi Osaka has joined the growing calls for answers on the whereabouts of Chinese player Peng Shuai, who has not been heard from publicly since she accused the country’s former vice premier of sexually assaulting her.Peng, one of China’s biggest sporting stars, made the claims in a Weibo post on 2 November, in which she alleged Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex and that they had an intermittent affair. Continue reading...

The Coalition has a solid track record in imposing ‘don’t do’ regulation on some people when it suits them“Can do capitalism” is the latest Morrison-ism to be tested this election campaign, with the prime minister placing responsibility for the government’s climate change ambition with the private sector, in another attempt to minimise his government’s need for action.“We believe climate change will ultimately be solved by ‘can do’ capitalism; not ‘don’t do’ governments seeking to control people’s lives and tell them what to do, with interventionist regulation and taxes that just force up your cost of living and force businesses to close,” Morrison said last week. Continue reading...

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson discuss ‘where the magic started’ in HBO Max specialThe original cast of the Harry Potter series will be reunited 20 years after the first film was released.An HBO Max special titled Return to Hogwarts will be released on 1 January 2022, the network has said. Continue reading...

Police say two, possibly three, bodies found using new technology, just days before 11th anniversary of country’s worst mining disaster in a centuryThe remains of some of the men killed in the Pike River mine disaster, one of New Zealand’s worst mining disasters, have been found more than a decade after the explosion.The blast in November 2010 killed 29 workers, and many of the families have been fighting to have the remains of their loved ones found ever since. The mining tragedy – New Zealand’s worst in 100 years – resonated around the world: among the men who died were 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two British citizens and one South African. Continue reading...

Continuous, heavy rain has caused major flooding and mudslides across parts of Canada and the US. Tens of thousands were left without power and mass evacuations were ordered after the record rainfall. Search and rescue officials in British Columbia confirmed there were multiple fatalities. South of the border in the US state of Washington, drone footage showed Bellingham residents navigating flooded roads in kayaks

Under the licensing agreement, Pfizer will not receive royalties from the manufacturers, making the treatment cheaper

Sport retailer is concerned about people risking their lives using its products to try to reach EnglandThe sport equipment retailer Decathlon will no longer sell canoes in the north of France to prevent migrants from attempting to use them to cross to England.Tuesday’s announcement came as hundreds of people crossed the Channel by boat in what was a busy day for UK search and rescue forces. There were multiple landings along the Kent coastline, including about 60 people who landed at Dungeness shortly before 4pm. Continue reading...

Explosives professor Jackie Akhavan says probably only detonator of improvised bomb went offAn explosives expert has said she believed that the bomb outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital was most likely a simple device made either using flash powder from fireworks or ammonium nitrate that malfunctioned.Prof Jackie Akhavan, an explosive chemistry expert at Cranfield University, said: “This looks like a low-end terrorist-type attack, where it’s failed to work,” having studied CCTV video of the explosion. “It looks like a detonator went off, which broke windows in the car, but there was no sign of a blast wave you would get from a full bomb.” Continue reading...