The fanboy director’s exhaustive doc follows Ron and Russell Mael over their 50-year career as pop’s great arch humoristsOver a whopping two hours and 20 minutes, film-maker Edgar Wright consummates a gigantic act of fanboy love for the glam art-pop duo Sparks, who hailed from California but found fame in Britain on Top of the Pops in the 1970s. Fronted by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks have continued recording and touring through good times and bad while amassing a fanatical following. Ron is the deadpan one at the piano with the Chaplin/Hitler moustache, and Russell the more extravagant and dishy lead singer.Related: ‘We have a hostility to being boring’: Sparks, still flying in their 70s Continue reading...

With Finland now open to vaccinated travellers, the 20,000 pristine islands off its south-west coast make for an appealing post-pandemic tourFinland has dealt with the pandemic much better than a lot of other countries. It still has one of the lowest rates of both confirmed cases (about 103,851 at time of writing) and coronavirus-related deaths (currently 982) in Europe, a feat many have attributed to a strategy of rapid lockdowns and stringent travel restrictions.It did all this in typical Finnish style: without shouting about it. Perhaps this quiet demeanour is related to the country’s deep connection with the natural world, where shouting usually isn’t necessary. More than 90% of Finland is either forest or water, and the country’s jokamiehenoikeus (right to roam) gives anyone living in or visiting Finland access to all that nature, including a lot of privately owned land. Continue reading...

Activists fear a ‘dangerous precedent’ being set as Copenhagen uses a report that deems Damascus safe to deny residency statusDenmark’s attempt to return hundreds of Syrians to Damascus after deeming the city safe will “set a dangerous precedent” for other countries to do the same, say lawyers who are preparing to take the Danish government to the European court of human rights (ECHR) over the issue.Authorities in Denmark began rejecting Syrian refugees’ applications for renewal of temporary residency status last summer, and justified the move because a report had found the security situation in some parts of the country had “improved significantly”. About 1,200 people from Damascus currently living in Denmark are believed to be affected by the policy. Continue reading...

Melvin Van Peebles and Perry Henzell made seminal 70s films – now their kids have recovered their fathers’ would-be classicsJustine Henzell and Mario Van Peebles both know what it’s like to grow up on movie sets as the child of a groundbreaking director. Henzell was six in 1972 when her father, Perry, finished The Harder They Come, Jamaica’s first full-length feature, starring the reggae legend Jimmy Cliff as a fugitive whose musical success coincides with his criminal notoriety. Van Peebles even starred in his father Melvin’s third film, the 1971 underground hit Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which is credited with inspiring the Blaxploitation genre.As adults, each of them has now had a hand in rescuing and restoring great movies by their fathers that might otherwise have been lost or neglected: Henzell’s more ruminative second feature No Place Like Home, which was lost for more than 20 years, and Van Peebles’s stylish, Nouvelle Vague-tinged 1967 debut The Story of a Three-Day Pass, overlooked at the time and later overshadowed by the more incendiary Sweetback. Henzell laughs when I remark on her father’s momentum in getting started on his second feature so quickly after the first. “He may have had momentum but he had no money,” says the 55-year-old, the ocean lapping at the Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica, shoreline behind her. “The film was shot in fits and starts as the cash came in. He was completely broke after The Harder They Come. He’d been carrying those cans around the world himself trying to sell it. The film still hadn’t repaid its investors and here he was making something even more experimental.” Continue reading...

If cellular agriculture is going to improve on the industrial system it is displacing, it needs to grow without passing the cost on to workers, consumers and the environmentAmericans will eat about 2bn chicken nuggets this year, give or take a few hundred million. This deep-fried staple is a way of profiting off the bits that are left after the breast, legs and wings are lopped off the 9 billion or so factory-farmed chickens slaughtered in the US every year. Like much else that is ubiquitous in contemporary life, the production of nuggets is controlled by a small group of massive companies that are responsible for a litany of social and ecological harms. And, like many of the commodities produced by this system, they are of dubious quality, cheap, appealing and easy to consume. Nuggets are not even primarily meat, but mostly fat and assorted viscera – including epithelium, bone, nerve and connective tissue – made palatable through ultra-processing. As the political economists Raj Patel and Jason Moore have argued, they are a homogenised, bite-size avatar of how capitalism extracts as much value as possible from human and nonhuman life and labour.But if chicken nuggets are emblematic of modern capitalism, then they are ripe for disruption. Perhaps their most promising challenger is a radically different sort of meat: edible tissue grown in vitro from animal stem cells, a process called cellular agriculture. The sales pitch for the technology is classic Silicon Valley: unseat an obsolete technology – in this case, animals – and do well by doing good. Continue reading...

Shelters swept away as activists say people stuck in Cox’s Bazar are highly vulnerable to the ‘rapidly changing climate’At least six Rohingya refugees were killed by landslides or drowned in flooding after rain inundated refugee camps in Bangladesh over recent days, deepening the despair among those living there.Knee-deep waters coursed through the camps, battering fragile shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin and making at least 5,000 people homeless, according to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR). Continue reading...

To find out the true production cost of a garment is a tortuous process. Here is what you need to know to buy clothes with a clear conscienceWhat is the true cost of a Zara hoodie? In April 2019, David Hachfeld of the Swiss NGO Public Eye, along with a team of researchers and the Clean Clothes Campaign, attempted to find out. They chose to analyse a black, oversized top from Zara’s flagship Join Life sustainability line, which was printed with lyrics made famous by Aretha Franklin: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: find out what it means to me”. It was an apt choice, because the idea was to work out whether any respect had been paid to the workers involved in the garment’s production, and how much of the hoodie’s average retail price, €26.66 (£22.70), went into their pockets.This was no simple assignment. It took several people six months, involved badgering Zara’s parent company, Inditex, over email, slowly getting limited information in return, and interviewing dozens of sources on the ground in Izmir, Turkey, where the garment was made. The researchers analysed financial results and trading data, and consulted with experts in pricing and production. It was, Hachfeld says on the phone, with dry understatement, “quite a huge project”. Continue reading...

State premiers including Victoria’s Daniel Andrews have criticised the lockdown settings in NSW as too lax

The final season of the longest running animated series in the US will air in 2022Arthur, the longest running children’s animated series in the US, will soon come to an end.PBS Kids plans to end the beloved television show after 25 seasons, said an original developer of the show during a podcast released on Wednesday. The final season will air in 2022. Continue reading...

Report finds the country’s main grocers, Woolworths and Foodstuffs, make huge profits compared with their international counterpartsNew Zealand’s government will consider breaking up its supermarket duopoly to secure more affordable food prices for shoppers, after a new report that found the grocers were making huge profits and charging some of the highest prices in the OECD.David Clark, the commerce and consumer affairs minister, said on Thursday the government would “do whatever it takes to make sure New Zealanders get a fair deal at the checkout”. Continue reading...

DPP reveals police were given rape allegation advice in June, contradicting claims by police commissioner and home affairs minister that case is with public prosecutorThe ACT director of public prosecutions says the Brittany Higgins investigation is currently back in the hands of the Australian federal police, contradicting both the AFP commissioner, Reece Kershaw, and the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews.During an appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Kershaw was asked for an update on the Higgins matter. Continue reading...

A magistrate will look at whether possible failings in the alert system led to the country’s worst floods in decadesA Belgian judge has opened an investigation for possible manslaughter over floods there that claimed 38 lives, the prosecutors office in the city of Liege announced.The investigating magistrate has the task of identifying who might be responsible for “involuntary homicide by lack of foresight or precaution” the prosecutors office said in a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

As infections soar to record highs and the vaccine rollout languishes, some fear there is no end in sight for the pandemic

Observers fear pandemic could be responsible for deaths, adding intrigue to freedom protests taking place in Cuba and USFive mostly elderly and retired Cuban military generals have died in recent days in mysterious circumstances, the country’s communist regime has confirmed, adding intrigue to a new round of freedom protests taking place in the island and US.Related: Leftwing rural teacher Pedro Castillo sworn in as president of Peru Continue reading...

The band’s bassist for more than 50 years, who had recently suffered a hip injury, died in his sleep at his Texas homeDusty Hill, bassist for ZZ Top, has died at the age of 72.Hill, who had recently suffered a hip injury, died in his sleep, as confirmed by a statement on Instagram from bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard. Continue reading...

Castillo vows to govern ‘for the people and with the people’ but will face deeply divided CongressA rural school teacher who has never held public office has been sworn in as Peru’s new president pledging to govern “with the people and for the people” in a ceremony steeped in historic symbolism on Peru’s bicentenary of independence from Spain.Wearing his typical wide-brimmed straw hat, Pedro Castillo promised to make sweeping changes to the country in his inaugural speech, he paid homage to Peru’s indigenous people and teachers and vowed to combat corruption, rein in monopolies and boost public spending on education and health. Continue reading...

Police speak with wealthy billboard operator who depicted French president as Nazi leaderEmmanuel Macron is taking legal action against a wealthy billboard operator who displayed posters depicting him as Adolf Hitler.Lawyers for the French president are suing after the large images appeared in the Var in the south of France. Continue reading...

Days after PM’s overthrow fears grow that Kais Saied will undo democratic gains achieved by Arab springTunisia’s president has launched a purge of senior officials, including prosecutors and judges, and taken on judicial powers, days after overthrowing the prime minister and imposing emergency law.Kais Saied’s crackdown has dragged the country deeper into uncertainty days after its elected parliament was suspended for a month in a shock move that brought a decade of faltering democracy to a sudden halt. Continue reading...

Health secretary’s comments came after a week of declining cases ended with 4,000 increase in one day

After weeks of resistance, Scott Morrison announced a rise in the disaster payment as well as a top-up for those on welfare payments

Find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years start of stone-tool industry associated with Homo erectusArchaeologists in Morocco have announced the discovery of north Africa’s oldest stone age hand-axe manufacturing site, dating back 1.3m years, an international team has reported.The find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years the start date in north Africa of the Acheulian stone-tool industry, associated with the human ancestor Homo erectus, researchers told journalists in Rabat on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Two men were standing by to film murder of Dutch journalist as part of plan to post footage online, say policeFootage of the Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries taken shortly after he had been shot in the head in central Amsterdam is thought to have been filmed and posted on the internet by those involved in his murder.Investigators believe two men had been standing ready and waiting for De Vries before he was attacked as part of a plan to film his body and post the images on the internet in order to attract maximum publicity. Continue reading...

Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn is a good directorial fit for the humour and freaky violence of DC’s bad-guy jamboreeDC’s new Suicide Squad movie announces itself as different from the coolly received first film from 2016 simply by adding “The” to the title, maybe sneakily trying for an unacknowledged rebrand or reboot. James Gunn, also in charge of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, is brought on board as director and co-writer. This second Squad outing (if you don’t count last year’s standalone Harley Quinn adventure Birds of Prey) is a long, loud, often enjoyable and amusing film that blitzes your eyeballs and eardrums and covers all the bases. There is Guardians-style comedy mixing humans and talking animals, there is freaky violence – including what I have to say is a gruesomely impressive interior-anatomical shot, showing a knife plunging into the still-beating heart – and there is colossal CGI spectacle for the final act in which a giant thing runs rampant in a city, while the gang look up at it; a trope that has become almost legally mandatory for superhero movies.Viola Davis once again brings a touch of class to the Suicide Squad franchise as the chillingly manipulative security chief Amanda Waller who now springs supervillain Bloodsport (Idris Elba) from jail so that he can head up an elite new crew of misfits, desperadoes and undesirables. These include Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), the ironically belligerent Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark – a great big talking shark in Hulk-ish stretchy shorts – voiced by Sylvester Stallone, Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melchior), who commands an army of rats wherever she goes, and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), who fires molten polka-dots at the enemy, revving himself up for the task by imagining that this is his overbearing mother. There is also a kind of B-team of Squadders whose job is to be hilariously expendable. Continue reading...

The craft store had acquired the 3,600-year-old artefact for its Bible museum, but court says it had been smuggled and should be returned to IraqA rare and ancient tablet showing part of the epic of Gilgamesh, which had been acquired by Christian arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby for display in its museum of biblical artefacts, has been seized by the US government.The Department of Justice (DoJ) alleges that the 3,600-year-old “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet”, which originated in a region that is now part of Iraq, was acquired in 2003 by an American antiquities dealer, “encrusted with dirt and unreadable”, from the family member of a London coin dealer. Once it had arrived in the US, and been cleaned, experts realised that it showed a portion of the Gilgamesh epic, one of the world’s oldest works of literature, in the Akkadian language. Continue reading...

Extent of arcane practice known as crown consent in Scotland has until now been unknown to the publicThe Scottish government has given the Queen advanced access to at least 67 parliamentary bills deemed to affect her public powers, private property or personal interests under an arcane custom inherited from Westminster.The Queen’s consent procedure, which critics have called anti-democratic, has been used repeatedly by the monarch in recent decades to secretly lobby for changes to proposed UK legislation before it is passed by parliament. Continue reading...

Luchino Visconti emerges badly from this desperately sad documentary about the exploitation of his Death in Venice child star Björn AndrésenThis documentary tells us how the most beautiful boy in the world became its saddest man, his life damaged by the exploitative abuse that the movie business incidentally hands out to all those beautiful girls in the world without anyone caring or making documentaries about them.Related: ‘Death in Venice screwed up my life’ – the tragic story of Visconti’s ‘beautiful boy’ Continue reading...

Photographer unhappy about model railway version of viral picture she took at Berlin lakesideA woman whose photograph of a naked man in pursuit of a wild boar at a Berlin lakeside went viral has said she might take legal action against a company that has immortalised the spectacle for model railway enthusiasts.Adele Landauer, an actor and charisma coach, told German media she resented the fact that others were making money from her snapshot, which went around the world last August. Continue reading...

Author accused of repeating ‘lazy inaccuracies’ about businessman’s role in Russian politics and societyRoman Abramovich’s lawyer said it was defamatory to describe the businessman as having “a corrupt relationship” with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and that he had acted “covertly at his direction” in key business deals such as the purchase of Chelsea football club.Speaking on the first morning of a preliminary hearing of a high court libel claim against a bestselling book about the modern Kremlin, Hugh Tomlinson QC said the 54-year-old billionaire said he did not “bring this claim lightly” and understood it could be characterised as “an attack on public interest journalism”. Continue reading...

In a dense new docuseries, the personal and political journey of Barack Obama is explored along with the difficult tightrope he was forced to walkThe date was 10 February 2007 and the air was cold. Barack Obama, a US senator without deep political experience, stood before the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln began his career, and announced his daring candidacy for president of the United States.But on that same day, a State of the Black Union conference was taking place in Virginia. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader and former presidential candidate, told the gathering: “I wish Obama had announced here ’cos Lincoln did not free us. The abolitionist movement freed us. We’ve got to quit giving the wrong people credit for our history.” Continue reading...

Loosening of international travel restrictions will let millions more people visit friends and family in England

Activists say Lifta, abandoned during the 1948 war, must be preserved in the face of Israeli construction plansThe ancient Palestinian village of Lifta sits on a quiet hillside minutes from Jerusalem’s bustling modern centre. Abandoned when its residents fled during the 1948 war, it has been left unchanged – frozen in time – ever since.Today, however, its overgrown domed stone houses with arched windows, built during the early Ottoman Empire and resting on even older ruins dating back to the Iron Age, are at risk of being demolished to make way for a luxurious resort of villas, hotels and shops. Continue reading...

Landscape surrounding Snowdonia in Gwynedd is 32nd site in UK to get prestigious global statusThe slate landscape of north-west Wales, said to have “roofed the 19th century world” as its quarries exported slate across the globe, has become the UK’s newest Unesco world heritage site.The landscape surrounding Snowdonia in the county of Gwynedd was awarded the prestigious global status – already enjoyed by sites such as the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Grand Canyon in the US – by the World Heritage Committee meeting in China. Continue reading...

Special rapporteur urges security council to call for ceasefire amid fears Covid will spread across wider region

Many of us are holidaying close to home this year and opting for camping, having never tried it before. Readers recall the cold, wet, wild and wonderful experiences they have had under canvasAfter 18 months of lockdown and seeing nothing but buildings and city life, I needed to get away. I’d dreamed of visiting the Outer Hebrides for years and decided to take the plunge in May 2021, walking and camping solo along the Hebridean Way – my first time camping as an adult. I woke up to stunning beach views and I loved the freedom. But it wasn’t always easy: some nights I had to hold my tent up against the winds at 3am, and carrying all my kit on my back was horrendous at times. But I wouldn’t change a thing. My aim for the trip was to get back in touch with my homeland and endure the camping – but it turns out I love camping! It won’t be long before I’m on my way back to the Outer Hebrides – but with a lighter rucksack and a better inflatable mat this time. Bev Mackenzie, freelance copywriter, Bristol Continue reading...

Female member wins appeal to be allowed to take part in traditional Bavarian summer eventA German court has ruled that women cannot be excluded from a traditional event in which fishermen compete to catch the biggest fish in a stream that runs through a Bavarian town.The state court in Memmingen said the group that organises the town’s Fischertag, or fishermen’s day, must allow female members to participate in the climax of the annual summer event, which features people jumping into a stream with nets to catch trout. Whoever catches the biggest fish is crowned the “fishermen’s king”. Continue reading...

Potential witnesses reportedly distracted by visit of Jean-Claude Van Damme to nearby opticians

Submarine robot takes photos of vessel and cargo of amphorae dating back to second century BCAn ancient Roman vessel dating back to the second century BC has been discovered in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Palermo.The ship lies 92 metres (302ft) deep in the ocean, near Isola delle Femmine, and from the first images taken by a submarine robot it was carrying a copious cargo of wine amphorae. Continue reading...

Angela Rayner warns plan to lift quarantine for arrivals in England could allow in new Covid variant

Guardian newspaper rated highest by readers for accuracy, trustworthiness and depth of analysisThe Guardian continues to be the UK’s most widely used newspaper website and app for news, according to the communications watchdog, which shows it has increased its audience share over the past year.The research by Ofcom, based on audience surveys, found that 23% of consumers who used websites or apps for news turned to the Guardian for their updates, one percentage point higher than the Daily Mail’s online products, and a one-point increase on the previous year. Continue reading...

Defence secretary says Britannia replacement would cost up to £250m at event to launch projectBritain’s new royal yacht could cost the taxpayer an initial £50m more than previously indicated at a total cost of £250m, the defence secretary said at an industry event to launch the project.The replacement for the long-scrapped Britannia, a brainchild of the prime minister, Boris Johnson, would be commissioned at “between £200m and £250m at a firm price”, Ben Wallace told a specially convened conference at Greenwich. Continue reading...

First comes the warning call – then the race to evacuate. Residents of a Gaza apartment block recall the frantic minutes before their homes to were turned to rubble

Our photojournalist explores the famed outdoor venue in Cornwall as it welcomes back full houses“I knew of it from pictures I’d seen online and I thought it looked pretty, but when you arrive and see it yourself, it’s like, ‘Oh wow, this is insane,’” says actor Guido Garcia Lueches about the Minack Theatre. “It’s probably the best theatre I’ve ever performed in.”Carved largely by hand into a craggy, granite cliff-face, the dizzying outdoor venue on the south coast of Cornwall looks magnificent in the summer sunshine. Tiers of subtropical foliage splash colour throughout the landscape and weathered concrete seats bearing the titles of past shows rise abruptly from the stage. The ocean, 100ft below, looks an enticing shade of turquoise. Continue reading...

State records highest number of infections since latest outbreak as 40,000 Pfizer doses diverted to vaccinate year 12 students in Sydney hotspots

More than 100 patients have already been sent home as country faces its third and deadliest wave of coronavirus

As the conflict intensifies amid the withdrawal of US-led forces, a new wave of families are being forced to flee via perilous routes to Iran and TurkeyA weary Zebah Gul and her eight children are gathered quietly in a small room at a transit centre in Herat, north-eastern Afghanistan. Their six-month attempt to escape the war and find safety has failed.They have just spent a week in Iranian police detention after being caught trying to cross the border into Turkey, and are beginning to make their way back to their besieged home province of Takhar, on the opposite side of the sprawling country. Continue reading...

Sitting in a small dinghy in darkness as it took on water was frightening enough in a sea survival exercise let alone for realAs I paddled through crashing waves in the darkness, stomach churning, I watched our small dinghy starting to fill up with water with a sinking feeling – it wouldn’t be long before we went overboard, and I was worried that at least one person in my boat was paddling in the wrong direction. But, then again, it might have been me: I was wielding an oar twice my size and it was impossible to tell in the frenzy.

Ineos has been accused of using sports to ‘greenwash’ its reputationNew Zealand Rugby’s decision to sign a six-year deal with global petrochemical company Ineos has been criticised by Greenpeace, who said it fundamentally goes against the country’s “clean, green” values.NZ Rugby announced the company will become the official performance partner for its seven teams from 2022. Ineos is a UK oil, gas and petrochemical conglomerate – the third largest company of its kind in the world. Its main shareholder is billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, and the company has lobbied to weaken green taxes and reduce restrictions on fracking. Continue reading...

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has announced new financial assistance measures after New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian extended greater Sydney's lockdown by four weeks. One of the measures includes an extra $200 payment for welfare recipients in NSW who have lost more than eight hours' work per week. Other disaster payments will be increased from $600 to $750 as a maximum and for people who have lost less than 20 hours' work, from $375 to $450 per week

Covid restrictions extended for greater Sydney, with a hard lockdown expanded to Parramatta, Georges River and Campbelltown LGAs. Some restrictions have been eased with some construction to resume and a singles bubble introduced, while lockdown lifts in Orange. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW

Six years after deadly Fundao dam rupture, lawsuit against Anglo-Australian mining giant proclaimed as ‘an opportunity for real justice’London’s court of appeal made a U-turn on Tuesday by agreeing to reopen a US$7bn lawsuit by 200,000 claimants against Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP, reviving a case over a dam rupture behind Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.Lawyers for one of the largest group claims in English legal history have been pushing to resurrect the £5bn ($6.9bn) lawsuit against BHP since a lower court struck out the lawsuit as an abuse of process last year – and a court of appeal judge upheld that decision in March. Continue reading...