Deputy PM highlights ‘widespread vilification of politicians’ as he reveals most recent incident was threat of an acid attack

An installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale shows how camp residents have transformed the raw materials of aid to preserve their heritage and cultureWhen the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp started to overflow in 2013 it was so big it had become Jordan’s fourth-largest city. The camp, Za’atari, housed a staggering 150,000 people, and the influx of new arrivals meant that another camp had to be built a few kilometres away.Za’atari had been plagued by design flaws that were linked to violence and disorder, so when Azraq opened in 2014 as a “model camp” for the region it was heralded as a chance to rectify those problems. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Continue reading...

Branch stacking common practice and part of culture, Banyule mayor Rick Garotti tells Ibac inquiry

Frank Herbert’s novel, now adapted for cinema with Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, is finally getting the recognition it deserves, agree authors including Neil Gaiman and Jeff VanderMeerIf science fiction has an answer to fantasy’s The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien’s epic saga of the battle to defeat the Dark Lord, Sauron – then Frank Herbert’s Dune has to be a strong contender. Published in 1965, it is the story of the desert planet Arrakis, known as Dune; of the rare and priceless “spice” that can be found there; of the Atreides family, sent to Dune’s dangerous surface to rule; of its native Fremen people, who are capable of surviving in this inhospitable environment. Of the giant sandworms, hundreds of metres long, which hunt beneath the sands, and of Paul Atreides’ reluctant ascent to messianic status. And it is finally getting the mainstream attention it deserves, thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation, out in the UK on 21 October.I first read Dune when I was 18. It left behind deep, haunting memories: Paul Atreides chanting the Litany against Fear as his humanity is tested by the Gom Jabbar; the first appearance of a sandworm, vast and magnificent; the complexity of Paul’s rise to become the Bene Gesserit’s Kwisatz Haderach, the Fremen’s Mahdi (like much of the Fremen’s culture, the word is lifted from the vocabulary of Islam). As one character puts it: “No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero.” Continue reading...

Mother describes girl’s disappearance as ‘very unusual’ as police continue air, land and sea search at MacleodWestern Australian police hold grave fears for a missing four-year-old girl on the state’s northwest coast as detectives investigate the possibility she was abducted.Cleo Smith was last seen by her parents about 1.30am on Saturday at the Blowholes campsite at Macleod, north of Carnarvon. Continue reading...

UK’s ‘detain first, ask later’ approach is hampering state’s ability to identify victims, say charitiesMore than 4,500 people have been held in immigration detention in the UK before being released into the community and only then identified as potential victims of trafficking, official figures for the past five years show.Charities claim the figures demonstrate a “detain first, ask later” attitude that runs counter to the fight against modern slavery and suggest others are probably being deported without having been referred for support. They fear the situation will be exacerbated by the nationality and borders bill, which they say makes it harder to identify victims. Continue reading...

Boxing helped prizefighter Arifonso Zvenyika overcome real hardship. Now he teaches the sport he loves to aspiring fighters in a Harare ghettoBeneath a corrugated iron roof in the crowded Harare suburb of Mbare, a group of boys darts back and forth across a smooth concrete floor, firing a series of rapid punches into the air.A wiry older man, dressed in low-slung tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops, watches their moves, encouraging them to “Jab! Jab! Jab!”. Continue reading...

Celebratory wakes, lavish funerals, fanfare bands and dramatic displays are just some of Haiti’s death rites, which, like its weddings, are often extravagant social events despite the country’s poverty Continue reading...

Commonwealth Rutherford fellow and his family face deportation from UK amid conflicting messages from departmentA scientist conducting groundbreaking research into renewable energy is facing deportation with his family to Sri Lanka, where he experienced torture, after receiving contradictory information about his case from the Home Office.Dr Nadarajah Muhunthan, 47, his wife Sharmila, 42, and their three children, aged 13, nine and five, came to the UK in 2018 after Muhunthan, who is working on thin-film photovoltaic devices used to generate solar energy, was given a prestigious Commonwealth Rutherford fellowship. The award allowed him to come to the UK for two years to research and develop the technology. His wife obtained a job caring for elderly people in a nursing home. Continue reading...

Triptych’s 21st-century variations comment on technology, consumerism, sex and the planetAdam is a busy robot poring over the codes of creation. The climate disaster has imprisoned the devil in a block of ice. And a social media sinner is lashed to a hashtag for all eternity while a Terminator stalks through a charnel house hell.The Garden of Earthly Delights is once again in full, admonitory bloom. More than five centuries after it was completed, Hieronymus Bosch’s masterpiece is being reimagined and reinterpreted by 15 international artists using everything from sound art and sculpture to painting, video, installation, gifs and digital animation. Continue reading...

Queensland announces reopening plan; Liberals hear climate plan; Victoria and NSW release Covid numbers; Tasmania snap lockdown to end tonight; Icac hearings begin into Gladys Berejiklian; Barnaby Joyce ‘hopes’ climate won’t split the Coalition. Question time begins in Canberra. Follow the latest updates live

He blew the doors off in the 60s as part of an upstart generation of actors. As he releases a new film and tries his hand at novel-writing, is he about to make a clean getaway from the movie business?Michael Caine is 88 and walks with a stick. He has a gammy leg and a dodgy spine and reckons the only time he leaves the house these days is when his wife has the time to take him out for a drive. The other week he was sent a screenplay that had his character running away from a bunch of crooks, and this made him laugh – the very idea he could play it. “I can’t walk, let alone run,” he says. “And I’m more or less done with movies now.”He was winding down anyway, hadn’t shot a film in a year, and then sneaked in one last movie, Best Sellers, just before the pandemic struck. He doubts he will ever make another, which is fine by him, no great loss. He’s got his knighthood and his Oscars; what does he have left to prove? He says: “I’ve done 150 movies. I think I’ve done enough.” Continue reading...

Voters invested hope in the idea of leaving the EU. But a few years of queues and chaos could further erode public trustWhat must it be like to be in the inner circles of this government, watching the economy bounce from crisis to crisis? Shortages mount, while livestock that suddenly cannot be put into the food chain is slaughtered and sent to rendering plants. Ships are diverted from UK ports because no drivers can be found to transport their cargo once it is offloaded. In response to ministers’ threats to suspend the trading arrangements for Northern Ireland – that we are now told the government never believed in to start with – there is reportedly pressure within the EU to begin preparations for a trade war.The prime minister goes off to Marbella, where he pretends to paint pictures; the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, is said to be pinning his hopes for an easing of the current energy crisis on a “wet, windy and mild” winter. Yet the Conservative party is still ahead in the polls, apparently shored up by the weakness of the Labour party and the clear, optimistic narrative that Boris Johnson has so far managed to project on to events. And I wonder: in cabinet meetings and ministerial get-togethers, do they laugh at the apparent absurdity of it all, or anxiously exchange estimates of when the roof might finally start to fall in?John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

They blagged a fortune off their label after promising to be ‘the German Beatles’ – then went wild in the countryside making experimental krautrock. But was there more to Faust than pneumatic drills and nude donkey rides?Jean-Hervé Peron, former bassist and vocalist with Faust, would like to get something straight about his old band – specifically, the period in the early 1970s when they were living in a commune in Wümme, a rural area outside Hamburg. Faust’s time in Wümme is one of the great sagas in the history of experimental rock, which begins with their wily late manager, Uwe Nettelbeck, somehow convincing Polydor that they were signing not a recently formed collection of Hamburg musicians who would prove to be the most uncompromising band in an uncompromising era for German rock – even by the standards of fellow travellers Can, Kraftwerk and Amon Düül II, Faust’s eponymous 1971 debut album was a provocative, revolutionary, flat-out weird listen – but “the German Beatles”.Faust’s keyboard player, Hans-Joachim Irmler, thinks their manager played on the fact that Polydor had lost both the actual Beatles, who had been signed to the label for a year while still performing in Hamburg, and Jimi Hendrix “because they didn’t care enough”, concentrating their attention on the lightweight, upbeat brand of Mitteleuropean bubblegum pop known as schlager. Having extracted a reputed DM 30,000 (roughly £160,000 today) out of the company, Faust decamped to an old school in Wümme, at which point the story gets more legendary still. Vast quantities of drugs were taken and the wearing of clothes was optional. Meals were frequently taken in the nude and the band’s original drummer, Arnulf Meifert, rode a donkey naked through a nearby village. Continue reading...

Wales is asking its young people to stay and work. Many want to, but there are concerns about lack of opportunityStudents Kyle Davies and Timothy Bird were to be found working on a jet engine in the aerospace centre at the University of South Wales’ Treforest campus, just south of Pontypridd.Both agreed they loved the area – the green hills, the sense of community, the culture and history. But they may have to leave to leave to find work. Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern says restrictions are needed to prevent a spike in cases, as experts warn any relaxation now would be ‘very dangerous’Auckland, the city at the centre of New Zealand’s Covid outbreak, will remain in level 3 lockdown for another two weeks, despite rising vaccination levels. The decision from prime minister Jacinda Ardern comes as experts remain concerned that an early move out of lockdown could be disastrous, and risk overwhelming the health system.Auckland is closing in on 90% of its population having had one shot; 89% of the region’s population has now had at least one dose, and 70% are fully vaccinated. Continue reading...

Lenilda dos Santos left her home in rural Amazonia, part of a South American exodus driven by a coronavirus-era depressionAs coronavirus tore through the Valley of Paradise, a farm-flanked backwater in the Brazilian Amazon, Lenilda dos Santos, a nurse technician, stood on the frontline clutching hands most feared to touch.“She was a warrior during the pandemic,” said Lucineide Oliveira, a friend and colleague at the town’s small, understaffed hospital. “She’d say: ‘If we have to die, we’ll die. But we must fight.’” Continue reading...

Five global thinkers were each awarded a grant worth £1m to develop their ideas and technologiesCelebrities have joined Prince William in London for the inaugural awards ceremony of his Earthshot Prize, an ambitious environmental program aimed at finding new ideas and technologies around the world to tackle the climate crisis and Earth’s most pressing challenges.Actors and activists strode down a green carpet at Alexandra Palace in north London. Emma Watson, Emma Thompson and David Oyelowo joined Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, in handing out the awards, with a £1m going to each winner. Continue reading...

A man has been arrested at Barkly Square shopping centre and police say they are not looking for anyone else

US artist returns to site for third time to highlight plight of Dead Sea, which is receding by about a metre a yearHundreds of models wearing only white body paint have walked across a stark desert expanse near the Dead Sea, part of the latest photography project of American artist Spencer Tunick.The 54-year-old photographer visited the spot in southern Israel as a guest of the tourism ministry to portray for the third time the shrinking Dead Sea via nude subjects. Continue reading...

Trade body says one in five businesses had to close or cut hours last month for lack of security staffNightclubs are suffering from a growing shortage of bouncers, in the latest staffing squeeze to hit the UK’s economic recovery, with some estimates suggesting venues are having to pay security staff as much as 25% more.The lack of security personnel comes at a time when hospitality businesses are being hit by a cocktail of rising costs and are trying to rebound from months of closures during the pandemic. Continue reading...

Rescuers search for survivors after days of rain bring devastation to south-eastern stateAt least 25 people have died in landslides and floods triggered by heavy rains in south-western India, officials said on Sunday, as rescuers scoured muddy debris for survivors and the military flew in emergency supplies.Residents were cut off in parts of the coastal state of Kerala as the rains, which started to intensify from late on Friday, swelled rivers and flooded roads. Continue reading...

Follow all the latest on the coronavirus pandemic from the UK and around the world

Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writesThe United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing. Continue reading...

Five children were among group of 16 US citizens and one Canadian abducted by gang members after orphanage visitA group of 17 missionaries, including five children, have been kidnapped by an armed criminal gang in Haiti.The group – 16 Americans and one Canadian citizen – were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a statement from the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which supports 9,000 children in Haitian schools and sent out a message asking supporters to pray for its members. Continue reading...

Home secretary says MPs’ surgeries could get police protection but some raise concerns about deterring publicBoris Johnson will lead tributes to Sir David Amess in the House of Commons on Monday as debate rages about how drastically to step up security in the wake of the fatal attack on the Southend MP at his constituency surgery.On Sunday night Amess’s family appealed for public unity, urging people to “set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all”. In a statement, his relatives said they were “absolutely broken” but had drawn strength from the tributes to him from across the political spectrum. Continue reading...

Before his fatal stabbing the Southend West MP had been making plans for a Cop26 children’s parliamentSir David Amess made no secret of where he was going to be on Friday 15 October: details of his constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist church were pinned at the top of his Twitter account several days in advance.Among those who turned up, according to witnesses, was Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old British-born man whose family had fled to the UK from Somalia. Sources close to the investigation into Amess’s killing indicated on Sunday that Ali had booked an appointment to see the MP. Continue reading...

Exclusive: diplomatic effort by US following Australia cancelling $66bn deal with France not matched by LondonThe US has urged Britain to follow its example and try to repair its relations with Paris in the wake of the row over France’s loss of its submarine contract with Australia.Australia pulled out of the $66bn (£48bn) contract for 12 diesel electric-powered submarines, signed in 2016, to opt instead for nuclear-powered submarines to be developed with America and the UK. The secretive and sudden cancellation of the contract has created a crisis of trust between Paris on the one hand and London, Canberra and Washington on the other. Continue reading...

The tone of France’s presidential election campaign suggests a society that is becoming increasingly illiberalSince the election of Emmanuel Macron as president in 2017, it has been tempting to view French politics in somewhat Manichean terms. Four years ago, Mr Macron won by (comfortably) beating Marine Le Pen in the second round runoff. Until this autumn, it seemed extremely likely that next spring’s election would be a rematch. Division and disarray on the French left, and the continuing slump of the centre-right Républicains party, left voters with a seemingly stark choice: centrist liberalism or far-right nationalism. This normalisation of the Le Pen dynasty was bad enough. But recent polls suggest a more complicated picture; and from a progressive standpoint, perhaps a more disturbing one.The xenophobic right has found a new star in Éric Zemmour, an author and television pundit who made his name on the French equivalent of Fox News. Mr Zemmour has yet to officially declare his candidacy, but this month he outstripped Ms Le Pen in the polls for the first time. Ms Le Pen has been attempting to woo more moderate voters by toning down the inflammatory rhetoric of her party, Rassemblement National (RN). This has given Mr Zemmour an opening. His extreme Islamophobia, culturally supremacist language and focus on immigration have made him a magnet for those disillusioned by Ms Le Pen’s detoxification strategy. Cultivating an independent, erudite persona, he has also been able to attract ultra-conservative Catholics from Les Républicains who would never vote for the RN. Continue reading...

Jethro Watson-Pickering, 23, was in an armoured vehicle that was involved in a collisionA soldier who died during an army training exercise on Salisbury Plain on Friday has been named as Pte Jethro Watson-Pickering.The 23-year-old was from the village of Boosbeck, North Yorkshire, and had been “part of a crew operating an armoured vehicle”, a spokesperson from Wiltshire police said. Continue reading...

Derek Niemann | Snacks in exams | Cop26 | John CraceA big thank you to Derek Niemann for visiting the Isle of Man and writing a country diary about one of its outstanding habitats, the limestone pavements and rock pools of the Scarlett peninsula (13 October). Having read the column since the days of William Condry and Harry Griffin, I believe this is the first Manx country diary; may the tide surging through the wrack which Niemann describes so well bring him back to write more.

Laramba’s Indigenous residents fear they are at risk of long-term illness and say they need to know who is responsible for fixing the problemJack Cool is looking to hitch a lift out of town.The 71-year-old former stockman has lived in Laramba, a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory, for most of his life. Continue reading...

Countries ‘colluded to provoke and stir up trouble’ in region that China claims as its territoryThe Chinese military has condemned the United States and Canada for each sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait last week, saying they were threatening peace and stability in the region.China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and has mounted repeated air force missions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the past year, provoking anger in Taipei. Continue reading...

Analysis: about half the capital, Port-au-Prince, is controlled by criminals, many of whom do dirty jobs for business and politiciansThe kidnapping of 17 foreign missionaries in Haiti marks the latest escalation in a wave of criminality in the impoverished and politically fragile Caribbean state, which has long seen waves of gang-related crime coincide with heightened political turmoil.According to some estimates, Haiti’s powerful gangs, numbering about 90 criminal organisations in total, control territory amounting to half of the sprawling capital of Port-au-Prince and cost the country over $4bn a year. Continue reading...

Dedicated Conservative politician who served as Southend West’s MP in Essex for nearly 25 yearsSir David Amess, who has died aged 69 after being stabbed while holding a constituents’ surgery at a church in Leigh-on-Sea, was the Conservative MP for Southend West in Essex. Though he spent more than half his life in the Commons without ever attaining ministerial office, the likelihood is that he would not have wanted it any other way.He devoted his career to the promotion of his constituencies – first Basildon, then from 1997 Southend West – and to dealing with their voters’ concerns. He had a high local profile and was always willing to meet constituents, advertising his regular weekly surgeries in advance. Continue reading...

Three-metre tall figure will land on Folkestone beach after walking thousands of miles across EuropeThe transcontinental odyssey of Little Amal will begin its final stage this week when the giant puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl reaches the shores of the UK after walking thousands of miles across Europe.Bells will chime and choirs will sing as Little Amal appears on the beach on Tuesday in Folkestone, Kent, after making the same cross-Channel journey that has been taken so far this year by more than 17,000 people seeking refuge from conflict, hunger and persecution. Continue reading...

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, featuring Indigenous cultural works, opens in PlymouthOn one level, it is a vivid treat for the eye: astonishing bursts of reds, oranges, yellows that are bound to warm up visitors during the bleak British winter months. But dig deeper and ancient stories about sustainability, community and acceptance that could hardly be better timed emerge.After being viewed by more than 400,000 people in Australia, winning prizes and attracting rave reviews, the exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters opens this week at The Box in Plymouth on the first leg of a European tour that will take in Paris and Berlin. Continue reading...

Latest updates on the aftermath of the killing of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess on FridayWes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North, said politicians need to take their security more seriously in the wake of the killing of David Amess.He said:The uncomfortable truth that lots of us are wrestling with is that if someone wants to attack you in this way, they will do it and there is a risk that comes with this job.MPs are having really difficult conversations with their families this weekend about the risk that we carry, about whether it’s worth it, and what we might do to make sure that we’re keeping ourselves, our staff and our families safe.I can recall in my six years as an MP one moment when I thought that a constituent might hit me in my advice surgery, but most of the time people are coming to you for help, and you deal with people in advice surgeries who are distressed, who are having a really hard time - that’s why we really want to protect those advice surgeries.If I could say one thing to the politicians who will come after me, it would be this: Jo’s words now written on the wall of the House of Commons – “More in Common” – are not there to remind you what she said. They are an organising instruction. They are there to tell you how to move our country on.I know many people will find it hard to understand how the bickering they see from us correlates with that instruction. Can it really be the case that the political world forever at war with itself could be any good at bringing people together? True, it is hard sometimes but the answer is not to give up, and David never did, on any of the many campaigns he ran. The answer is to listen more. Think hard about where others are coming from. Empathy, understanding, compassion. These are the skills that make our politics function. Continue reading...

Home secretary says safety measures for constituency surgeries under discussionThe home secretary, Priti Patel, has said she is considering offering police protection for MPs at their constituency surgeries, as a review takes place to “close the gaps” in security in the wake of the killing of David Amess on Friday.Patel said local police forces had already contacted all MPs to advise them about measures to improve their safety, and a review is taking place involving the House of Commons authorities and the police. Continue reading...

From Cabaret to Hamlet, Alan Cumming has relished every role he’s played. In this extract from his uproarious memoir, he reveals what made Stanley Kubrick cross and the amazing gift the Spice Girls gave himTom Cruise and Stanley Kubrick were standing before me. I had met Tom briefly when he had come to see me in the stage show of Cabaret in London, but this was my first encounter with Stanley, who was peering at me over his glasses. “Hey, Stanley, I’m Alan,” I said, proffering my hand to this old man who, on first glance, reminded me of a Hobbit version of Salman Rushdie. “You’re not American!” he retorted gruffly.I had heard tales of Stanley being formidable and demanding, so I was slightly on guard already. “I know,” I said, still rather taken aback. “I’m Scottish!” Continue reading...

Declassified documents reveal how in 1965 a shadowy dirty tricks arm of the Foreign Office incited anti-communist massacres that left hundreds of thousands deadIn early 1965 Ed Wynne, an official from the Foreign Office in London in his late 40s, arrived at the door of a two-storey villa set in the discreet calm of a genteel housing estate in colonial Singapore.But Wynne was no ordinary official. A specialist from the Foreign Office’s cold war propaganda arm, the Information Research Department (IRD), he had been assigned to lead a small team. A junior official, four local people and two “IRD ladies”, seconded to the unit from London, would join him. Continue reading...

Detainees have not been vaccinated and socially distancing is ‘impossible in the conditions they’re in’, advocates say

Critics compare figure of famous soprano erected in Greek capital to an Oscar statuetteDrama in life, drama in posterity. For Maria Callas, Greece’s greatest diva, there is, even 44 years after her death, no let up from the artistic wrangling that was her lot.But this time the uproar is focused on a statue erected at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, opposite the Roman theatre where the world-renowned opera singer made her debut. Continue reading...

Energy firm and director Alexander Temerko have given £1.1m between them to ConservativesFrench mayors and residents along the Normandy coast are campaigning to block a project for a cross-Channel electricity cable backed by a Ukrainian-born businessman who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative party.Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s business secretary, is due to decide this week on whether to give the go-ahead to a £1.2bn project for the 148-mile cable between Normandy and Hampshire. The firm says the link, which will run through Portsmouth, could supply up to 5% of Britain’s electricity needs. Continue reading...

Newly opened archive of art patron’s papers reveals a previously unseen sketch for the surrealist workOne of the world’s best-known pieces of furniture, Salvador Dalí’s Mae West lips sofa, started life as a sketch on the back of an envelope, research in the archive of a Sussex country house has revealed.The sketch was unearthed at West Dean near Chichester, the former home of Dalí’s patron Edward James, and experts say it reveals the extent to which James was involved in the creation of the 1930s sofa. Alongside the lobster telephone, also the result of a collaboration between Dalí and James, it is one of the emblems of the surrealist movement. Continue reading...

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has announced Melbourne’s lockdown will end from Friday 22 October. Here’s what you need to know about schools, travel, childcare and work, then and now

A celebration of the achievements of the Britain’s oldest para veteran, who died last week aged 101I first met Victor Gregg on a freezing afternoon in 2009 when we were to talk about his experiences in the second world war.He was 90 and had sent me an email saying he would pick me up at Winchester station. When I arrived there was no sign of him. After 10 minutes a car parked up the road flashed its lights. It was Vic practising a routine he had learned more than 50 years earlier in the Western Desert, when Rifleman Gregg was assigned to Vladimir Peniakoff, the founder of “Popski’s Private Army”, a unit of British special forces. Vic’s job was to drive thousands of miles, alone, through the dunes, carrying stores and intelligence to Popski’s contacts. Vic said Popski had told him: “Before you go in, suss out how you are going to get out.” This was a life lesson for Vic, I had just been “sussed out” by him before going further. Continue reading...

Mollie Hemingway says the 2020 election ‘went terribly wrong’. In a divided America, her deeply flawed book will find readersThe state of the union is sulfurous. Donald Trump’s defeat did not change that.More than 80% of Trump and Biden voters think elected officials from the other party “present a clear and present danger to American democracy”. Half of Trump supporters and two-fifths for Biden think secession would be a good idea.Rigged is published in the US by Regnery Continue reading...

A magical glimpse inside the house museums of five pioneers of art and designIf you are reading these pages, chances are you like nothing more than having a good snoop around other people’s houses. Below is a selection of five of the world’s best house museums – inspiring, creative, but ultimately delightfully domestic spaces that have been preserved as they were when the owners lived in them. Continue reading...

The shoe firm was founded in Street in Somerset in 1825. Now workers there are on strike and feel a proud history is being erasedWarehouse workers for Clarks have accused the 200-year-old shoemaker of betraying its philanthropic roots by threatening them with the sack if they don’t accept significant pay cuts.More than 100 staff in Clarks’ main distribution centre in Street, Somerset, where the brand was founded by two Quaker brothers in the 19th century, claim the firm is seeking to cut their wages by almost 15% from the average of £11.16 an hour to £9.50 an hour by using controversial fire and rehire tactics. Continue reading...