Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi accuses Lazio regional government of failing to tackle problemRome’s mayor has opened a criminal lawsuit against the surrounding Lazio regional government over “the massive and uncontrolled presence of wild boar in Italy’s capital”.In recent years, Roman citizens and farmers have protested about wild boar wreaking havoc on their land and causing fatal road accidents, and the animal is believed to be responsible for an average of 10,000 road accidents a year in the country. Continue reading...
Three died at the scene on 23 August and a fourth later died of her injuries, Essex police saidA fourth person has died after a serious collision involving a lorry, a minibus and a car on the M25 in Essex.Three people died at the scene, between junctions 27 and 26 of the anticlockwise carriageway, on 23 August and a fourth person later died of her injuries, Essex police said. Continue reading...
Official says ceremony is being prepared at presidential palace in Kabul – two weeks after Islamist militia seized controlThe Taliban are expected to announce a new government in Afghanistan within hours as chaos and confusion deepened and the country teetered on the brink of economic collapse more than two weeks after the Islamist militia seized control.Sources told Agence-France Presse the cabinet could be presented after morning prayers on Friday, while Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a Taliban official, said on social media a ceremony was being prepared at the presidential palace in Kabul. Continue reading...
The Vieux Pays of Goussainville should have disappeared during the construction of the Charles de Gaulle airport in the 70s, however some inhabitants resisted the takeover of their houses and continue to live there despite the noise and isolation Continue reading...
Fourteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?Once again it is time to brave the Thursday quiz challenge. Dare you enter the arena and take on 14 questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, wrestle with anagrams, spot the hidden Doctor Who reference and brave the siren call of the saintly Kate Bush? Look, it is just a silly quiz – there are no prizes. But do let us know how you got on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 19 Continue reading...
Illustrated Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor is one of fewer than 20 such prayer books believed to be in existenceA 700-year-old illustrated and annotated Hebrew prayer book that provides a window into the lives and rituals of Jewish communities in medieval Europe is expected to fetch up to $6m when it is sold at auction next month.The Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor, created in southern Germany in late 13th or early 14th century, is one of fewer than 20 such prayer books believed to be in existence. According to Sotheby’s, it is the most important medieval illustrated prayer book to be offered for sale in a century. Continue reading...
The proposed laws come after federal police called for a ban on extremist insignia and propagandaVictoria will become the first Australian state or territory to ban the public display of Nazi symbols.The proposed laws, expected to be introduced to state parliament in the first half of 2022 with bipartisan support, will prohibit the display of swastikas and other hate symbols in public spaces. Continue reading...
Cathy Brady’s disquieting film about a mysterious return has an extra layer of melancholy, because it features the last performance by the late Nika McGuiganTwo fiercely committed performances are the bedrock of this drama from writer-director Cathy Brady. Nora-Jane Noone plays Lauren, who lives near the Northern Irish border with her partner, and works in a vast Amazon-style fulfilment centre; and Nika McGuigan (from RTÉ’s TV comedy Can’t Cope Won’t Cope) plays her troubled sister Kelly, returning home after a mysterious yearlong absence. This tense reunion revives painful memories of their mother, who took her own life when they were both children. Yet Kelly’s homecoming also appears to relight the wildfire in the hearts of both women, as they challenge the menfolk thereabouts who are still in hock to the macho cult of terrorist violence.This sombre film has an extra shadow of sadness because it marks the final performance of McGuigan, who died of cancer in 2019 at the age of 33. There are powerful moments and surreally disquieting images in Wildfire, which incidentally reminded me in some ways of Pat Murphy’s classic Northern Ireland drama Maeve from 1981, also about a young woman returning home to make a reckoning with the past. I especially liked the strange tableau of Lauren and Kelly in the pub dancing wildly to Van Morrison’s Gloria on the jukebox and then finally stopping exhausted, as if emerging from a dream, to see a bunch of faintly sinister middle-aged guys glowering at them resentfully from the bar. Continue reading...
Pop star’s housekeeper had made allegation after dispute involving a mobile phone, now dismissed due to a lack of evidenceBritney Spears will not face charges over an allegation of battery against her housekeeper.In August, Spears was alleged to have slapped a mobile phone out of her housekeeper’s hand. Police officers attended Spears’s home following the battery complaint. Continue reading...
Sir Nicholas Kay says he feels shame over collapse to Taliban as he calls for lessons learned inquiryThe former UK ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Nicholas Kay has said the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is playing catch-up with other countries as the Taliban assume power there, as he also became the first senior diplomat to call for a lessons learned inquiry into the collapse of the country into the hands of the militants.Kay predicted that the UK government would have to pay countries to help transit refugees from Afghanistan to the UK. Continue reading...
In a new documentary, the defining funk artist’s ups and many downs are examined with a clear eye and a lack of sugar-coatingIn the jarring new music documentary, Bitchin: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, we see a star torn in half. On the one hand, there’s the Rick James who created some of the most popular, distinct and outrageous funk music of the late 70s and early 80s. On the other, there’s a man so lost to his desire for sex, drugs and recognition that his life became an obstacle course laced with landmines. “Rick set up a situation where it would be tough not to have a bad outcome,” said the film’s director, Sacha Jenkins. “It could not have been easy to be Rick James.”Related: ‘Like a horror film’: revisiting the Fyre-esque disaster of Woodstock 99 Continue reading...
This film about Misha Defonseca, author of a ‘memoir’ about escaping the Nazis and sheltering with wolves as a child, is propulsively watchable“Sometimes a story is so astonishing it’s unbelievable.” So said a Massachusetts radio presenter in the 90s, introducing Misha Defonseca, a local Jewish woman originally from Belgium. As a child in the war, Defonseca walked hundreds of miles across Nazi-occupied Germany to find her parents. She was one of Belgium’s “hidden children”, taken in by a Catholic family, her identity erased. In her internationally bestselling memoir she described how, cold and hungry, she was sheltered by a pack of wolves. Disney wanted to turn it into a film. Oprah Winfrey’s book club was interested.The thing is: Defonseca was a fake. Never mind a pack of wolves, her whole memoir was a pack of lies; a hoax Holocaust narrative. This documentary assembles the story like a thriller, interviewing the key players, keeping the audience guessing about certain important details until the end. It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal. Continue reading...
Written 75 years ago but deemed ‘too intimate’ to publish in her lifetime, this exclusive extract from a lost novel by the author of The Second Sex, translated by Lauren Elkin, is based on the ‘passionate and tragic’ friendship she had as a girl with Elisabeth ‘Zaza’ LacoinWhen I was nine years old I was a good little girl, though this hadn’t always been the case. As a small child the adults’ tyranny caused me to throw such tantrums that one of my aunts declared, quite seriously: “Sylvie is possessed by a demon.” War and religion tamed me. Right away I demonstrated perfect patriotism by stomping all over my doll because she was made in Germany, though I didn’t really care for her to begin with. I was taught that God would only protect France if I were obedient and pious: there was no escaping it. The other girls and I would walk through the basilica of Sacré-Cœur, waving banners and singing. I began to pray frequently, and I developed a real taste for it. Abbé Dominique, the chaplain at the Collège Adelaïde where we went to school, encouraged my ardour. Dressed all in tulle, with a bonnet made of Irish lace, I made my First Communion, and from that day forward, I set a perfect example for my little sisters. Heaven heard my prayers, and my father was appointed to a desk job at the Ministry of War because of his heart trouble.Related: Lauren Elkin: ‘I felt like I was in De Beauvoir’s body’ Continue reading...
Black children have access to just 1 cent for every dollar enjoyed by their white counterparts, new research shows, and Hispanic kids fare little betterAfrican American children are suffering long-term disadvantages as a result of vast and growing disparities in the wealth of US families, with Black families with kids having access to barely 1 cent for every dollar enjoyed by their white counterparts.The shocking racial wealth gap between families, and its impact on Black and Hispanic kids, is revealed in groundbreaking new research by scholars on US inequality. It shows that the basic wealth levels of families from different racial and ethnic backgrounds have diverged to such a stark degree in the past three decades that the future prospects of children from lower-wealth groups are likely to be grossly compromised. Continue reading...
In the poverty-stricken kingdom, an older generation rely on growing marijuana to feed children orphaned by Aids epidemicIn Nhlangano, in the south of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), the illegal farming of the mountainous kingdom’s famous “Swazi gold” is a risk many grandmothers are ready to take.In what is known locally as the “gardens of Eden”, a generation of grandparents are growing cannabis, many of them sole carers for some of the many children orphaned by the HIV/Aids epidemic that gripped southern Africa. Continue reading...
Foreign materials including stainless steel identified in batches of Covid-19 vaccine though no safety or efficacy issues have been reportedThe Moderna coronavirus vaccine programme in Japan has been hit by a series of contamination incidents, prompting it to recall 1.63m doses found to contain metal fragments.Other potential contaminants have been identified in separate batches over the past week but so far no injuries as a result of those vaccines have been reported. Continue reading...
A rare encounter was caught on video at Puerto Madryn, Argentina when a southern rIght whale seemingly plays with a woman on a paddleboard and pushes the board gently forward, observing its movement as it swims directly beneath it."They are rare moments, it is something that is prohibited," said Oscar Comes, a local water-sports tourism operator. "It isn't like you can go in a kayak, standup board, a boat, or whatever, to look for the animal." Continue reading...
The kung fu goddess talks about her most eye-popping stunts, her yearning to do another Crazy Rich Asians, and her outrageously enjoyable new Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsTen minutes into my conversation with Michelle Yeoh, there is a misunderstanding. We are discussing her character in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, an outrageously enjoyable new Marvel adventure about a San Francisco parking valet trying to ignore his destiny as a martial arts warrior. Yeoh plays Ying Nan, a beneficent gatekeeper who lives on the far side of an enchanted bamboo forest. Another character, played by Awkwafina, refers to Ying as “an awesome magical kung fu goddess”. When I mention this, Yeoh thinks Awkwafina made the remark about her. “Oh, that’s so sweet!” she says. “Of course, I already knew Awkwafina because we were both in Crazy Rich Asians.”There’s no need to point out the error, because it is perfectly true: Yeoh really is an awesome magical kung fu goddess. No one would argue with that. Not the millions who gasped as she skipped nimbly up walls and across rooftops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Nor the ones who flocked to her early Hong Kong action movies with the likes of Jackie Chan and Cynthia Rothrock. Not the ones who were first introduced to her in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. And certainly not Oliver Stone, who called her “a woman of elegance and magnificent grace – the young grande dame of Hong Kong cinema”. Nor Quentin Tarantino, who rushed to her bedside when she was in a body cast for a dislocated neck and cracked rib sustained after falling 18ft on to her head while filming The Stunt Woman in 1996. “He insisted on seeing me and sat on two pillows at my feet and recounted my movies frame by frame,” she later said. Continue reading...
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi tells US climate envoy John Kerry cooperation on reducing emissions cannot be separated from the broader relationshipChinese foreign minister Wang Yi has warned US climate envoy John Kerry that deteriorating US-China relations could undermine cooperation between the two countries on climate change.In a video link call on Wednesday, Wang told Kerry that such cooperation cannot be separated from the broader relationship and called on the US to take steps to improve ties, a foreign ministry statement said. Continue reading...
Mark Milley says it's possible the US will seek to coordinate on strikes in Afghanistan, though defence secretary Lloyd Austin remains scepticalUS Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said it was “possible” the United States will seek to coordinate with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against Islamic State militants or others.The extent and nature of a US-Taliban relationship, now that the war is over, is one of the key issues to be worked out. US military commanders have coordinated daily with Taliban commanders outside Kabul’s international airport over the past three weeks to facilitate the evacuation of more than 124,000 people, but that was a matter of convenience for both parties. Continue reading...
Some media reported soldiers identified in Brereton inquiry had been allowed to continue serving, but investigators reaffirm that has no bearing on their inquiriesGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingInvestigators are continuing to look into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan uncovered by the Brereton inquiry, despite media claims implying some individuals have been exonerated.Several media outlets have reported that more than a dozen soldiers who were issued with “show cause” notices no longer face termination, and in some cases this development has been conflated with separate investigations into alleged war crimes. Continue reading...
Authorities deployed troops and shut down the internet as a precautionary measure, police saidIndian Kashmir politician Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a veteran separatist, has died in Srinagar. He was 91 years old.In response to the news, authorities deployed troops around the city. Continue reading...
The media host says he used ivermectin, a medication that the FDA has warned againstJoe Rogan, the host of Spotify’s most popular podcast, has contracted Covid, he announced on Wednesday. He says he is feeling better – but his health update undoubtedly made health experts instantly sick.On Instagram, the podcaster, who professes not to be “an authority on health” but has discouraged young people from getting the coronavirus vaccine, said that he had “immediately thrown the kitchen sink” at his infection. Among the many medications he used, he said, was ivermectin, a drug used to deworm horses. Continue reading...
by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor and Heather Stew on (#5P1BS)
Dominic Raab grilled by foreign affairs select committee over why he did not act on risk assessmentThe UK Foreign Office’s own risk assessment warned that the Taliban could return rapidly to power, causing cities to collapse and triggering a humanitarian crisis, less than four weeks before the fall of Kabul.Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, told MPs on Wednesday that he believed the Afghan capital would remain safe until next year based on an assessment by the joint intelligence committee, a view he said was widely shared by Nato allies. Continue reading...
For three decades, Kevin Martin has detonated the British music scene with various apocalyptically noisy projects – all as a way to ‘get over the crushing tyranny of existence’Kevin Martin’s industrial dancehall project the Bug started 20 years ago, in chaotic circumstances. As part of electronic duo Techno Animal, the producer was playing a show in Bern, Switzerland, and had just started his soundcheck when the ramshackle wood-framed arts complex was attacked by football hooligans, some brandishing incendiary devices.Speaking to me from his home in Brussels, the permanently baseball-capped Martin says: “It was like warfare. There were people barricading doors. Glass was shattering as concrete went through windows. We were shitting our pants: ‘Hold on, this is a wooden building – if one of those molotovs goes off, we’re chargrilled!’” Continue reading...
‘I didn’t understand at the time was how transgressive this was. For her generation, you did not show your passport to anyone – let alone have it photographed’One day when I was around 11, I had to take a day off school. I had asthma and felt rotten, but I also felt ashamed about not being well. Mum decided to take me out to cheer me up. She took me to an auction – it wasn’t anything special, just one of those local things that would be advertised in the papers back in the day. She was hoping we might find a bike, probably just to stop me crying because everyone else had one and I felt left out.We took a bus to the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster and arrived late. Almost everything had gone. There were no bikes left. I was despondent. Mum was gunning for anything to cheer this moany kid up when a Kodak Instamatic went up for sale. I wasn’t convinced, but she persuaded me we should get it. By the time we’d got back home, it was an obsession – the best toy I’d ever received.
Team of civilians has been deployed to make sure random searches will not involve racial profilingA policy of randomly frisking people on the streets of Amsterdam is being trialled by police in response to a rise in youth gun crime but the police union has objected to the involvement of civilian observers.To assuage fears that the searches will involve ethnic profiling, a team of civilian monitors has been deployed tasked with reporting on any suspicious patterns. Continue reading...
His new HBO series has been re-edited after backlash over featuring 9/11 ‘truthers’ – but a thread of distrust remainsSpike Lee is no stranger to controversy, but pre-emption is new for him. His incendiary work has inspired scandals both righteous (Do the Right Thing frightened a complacent America with its vision of urban unrest) and regrettable (the Jewish club owners in Mo’ Better Blues attracted charges of antisemitism), and now, his new docuseries NYC Epicenters 9/11 —> 2021½ has landed him in the same hot water that never seems to cool.Related: Two decades after 9/11, the real threat to the US is our own far right | Harsha Panduranga Continue reading...
Foreign minister warns reviving site traditionally used for diplomacy with Palestinians could be ‘destabilising’Israel has said a US plan to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem that was traditionally a base for diplomatic outreach to Palestinians is a “bad idea” and could destabilise the prime minister’s new government.The previous US administration of Donald Trump signalled support for Israel’s claim on Jerusalem as its capital by moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv and subsuming the consulate in that mission. Continue reading...
Syed Taalay Ahmed, who worked for Muslim Television Ahmadiyya International, was ambushed in TamaleTributes have been paid to a British journalist killed in an armed robbery in Ghana.Syed Taalay Ahmed, 31, who grew up in Hartlepool, was working for Muslim Television Ahmadiyya International (MTA) when he was killed, the station said. Continue reading...
Militants show off Humvees as leaders gather in group’s southern Afghan heartlandTaliban fighters have stood aboard captured Humvees as they prepared for a parade of plundered US military hardware in their southern Afghan heartland.A long line of green vehicles sat in single file on Wednesday on a highway outside Afghanistan’s second-biggest city, Kandahar, many with white-and-black Taliban flags attached to aerials, according to an AFP journalist. Continue reading...
Manchester City footballer faces possible trial on four counts of rape and one of sexual assaultThe Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy will remain in custody before a potential trial on rape charges after a bail application was refused.The 27-year-old French international has been in custody at HMP Altcourse in Merseyside since last Friday, when he appeared at Chester magistrates court charged with four counts of rape and one of sexual assault. Continue reading...
Women forced out of jobs despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working, survey findsFemale journalists in Afghanistan are being forced out of jobs and told to stay at home despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working and to respect press freedom, according to a report.Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) says it believes fewer than 100 of Kabul’s 700 female journalists are still working and only a handful are continuing to work from home in two other Afghan provinces. Others have been attacked and harassed. Continue reading...
Francis ‘moved’ by Angela Merkel’s words on western intervention – in fact said by Russian presidentPope Francis has criticised the west’s recent involvement in Afghanistan – inadvertently quoting Vladimir Putin in doing so.In a wide-ranging interview with Spanish radio station COPE, the pope was asked for his thoughts on the redrawn political map of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the US and its allies from the country after 20 years of war. Continue reading...
Reporters covering rightwing protests have been assaulted, robbed and sprayed with mace as victims say police fail to enforce the lawLos Angeles has seen volatile protests almost every weekend this summer over trans rights, political opposition to masks and vaccines, and the recall of the Democratic governor. At least seven journalists have been physically assaulted while covering these rallies, six of them by rightwing demonstrators.Attacks on the press are just one part of escalating rightwing street violence in the city, which has included multiple stabbings, people being sprayed in the face with bear Mace, an assault on a breast cancer patient outside a clinic, and repeated physical brawls with leftwing protesters in the streets. In another sign of growing tensions, protesters rallying against vaccine mandates showed up at the homes of two Los Angeles city council members on Sunday. Continue reading...
Decision on indefinite leave to remain under resettlement scheme to be made ‘in due course’A decision has yet to be made on whether Afghans moving to the UK under the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme will be granted indefinite leave to remain, a government minister has said.Those who worked for the British military and UK government are able to move to the UK permanently and work under the Arap (Afghan relocations and assistance policy), the Home Office has announced. Continue reading...
by Nino Bucci and Amy Remeikis (earlier) on (#5P0JD)
Victoria announces lockdown changes for 23 September, after reporting 120 new cases and confirming two deaths; NSW records 1,164 cases and four deaths, with state to open to international Australians at 80% vaccination; June quarter economic growth revealed.This blog is now closed
Killings of police officers in tiny mountain kingdom has added to sense of ‘lack of consequences’, say analystsThe tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho has the sixth highest murder rate in the world, according to a recent World Population Review report.The global average murder rate is seven per 100,000 people, found the report, and Lesotho had a rate almost six times higher at 41.25. The report ranked Lesotho as only safer than El Salvador (82.84 per 100,000 people), Honduras (56.52), Venezuela (56.33), Virgin Islands (49.26) and Jamaica (47.01). Continue reading...
Graphics from a new book show causes and consequences that are hard to detect with the naked eyeIn a new book, Atlas of the Invisible, the geographer James Cheshire and designer Oliver Uberti redefine what an atlas can be. The following eight graphics reveal some of the causes and consequences of the climate crisis that are hard to detect with the naked eye but become clear when the data is collected and visualised. Continue reading...
How contagious is the Delta Covid variant? Take charge of this interactive and watch how small changes in isolation or reproduction rates of Covid-19 can affect our battle against it.One important characteristic of viruses and other pathogens is how contagious or infectious they are. One key measure of this is the R0, or basic reproduction number, which indicates how many new cases one infected person generates.
Awesome alpacas, frolicking flamingos and recuperating ravens … these rescue animals – in Sage Sohier’s photographs – have a zest for life and a remarkable willingness to forgive people Continue reading...
When I received the call about my father’s heart attack, there wasn’t time to scrub the polish off my fingers. I realised I wanted to share the truth of my life with my loved onesI was in a Pret in Cambridge city centre when I got the call: the senior tutor of my college, Pembroke, told me I had to come and see him. I was needed urgently back in London for a family emergency, and he would drive me to the train station.It was an October morning, 2016, and I was about to go to a lecture. But my heart sank in that moment: it was the kind of call that can only signal tragedy. My father had a heart condition – cardiomyopathy – and I knew that the offer to take me to the station meant he was certainly dead. Continue reading...
The Chinese president’s political ideology is incorporated into the national curriculum as the new school year beginsChinese pupils returned to school with new textbooks peppered with “Xi Jinping thought”, as the Communist party aims to extend his personality cult to children as young as seven and rear a new generation of patriots.The education ministry has said it will incorporate Xi’s vaguely defined political ideology into the national curriculum, from primary schools to graduate programmes, at the start of the new school year on Wednesday. Continue reading...