The film-maker’s latest thriller Old marks yet another step back into the public’s good graces after a string of misfiresLike a mushroom – one of the appetizing yet poisonous species, perhaps – M Night Shyamalan thrives in dark, contained spaces. His latest film Old isn’t physically enclosed, the majority taking place on an idyllic tropical inlet with gorgeous vistas of sand, sky and surf, though its visitors will soon learn that this beckoning setting wants to kill them and isn’t so easily escaped. But narratively speaking, it’s a tighter and more focused movie than we’ve seen from the film-maker in some time, and not so coincidentally, it finds him in top form. Planting nearly a dozen characters in a fixed locale, plunging them into terror, and letting the tension mount plays to the strengths of an unpredictable artist who shines under minimal, Twilight Zone-style parameters. The corollary to this notion reveals the fatal flaw that’s dealt his reputation and career so many ups and downs over nearly 30 years of film-making: a tragic excess of ambition.Related: Old review – M Night Shyamalan’s fast-ageing beach horror is top notch hokum Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon announces move aimed at preventing staff shortages due to NHS Covid app notifications

Trucks, diggers and volunteers try to clear mud and ruined belongings from wrecked homes and businessesA brown line one and a half metres high on the kitchen wall marks where the waters reached when Christian Ulrich’s house was inundated. The electrician stands amid the mud-splattered walls and his voice breaks as he recalls how he had barely enough time after the warning came to reach the cellar to get food and water and send his mother up the stairs. He had just managed to let in the neighbours who had banged on the door for help, when there was an “almighty crash – like an explosion” as a huge wave of water rolled in from the back and front of the house, so strong it pushed out the front door and many of the windows. Continue reading...

Ageing fleet hit by breakdowns and cancellations, with capacity low on services that do run due to Covid

New South Wales announces 136 new local Delta cases with Sydney under the strictest lockdown measures it has experiencedAustralia’s most populous state has declared a “national emergency” as it struggles to contain a record-breaking surge of the Delta variant of Covid-19 amid a lockdown affecting half the country.The state of New South Wales announced 136 new locally-acquired cases of Covid-19 on Friday, with continued community transmission among essential workers, including in supermarkets and pharmacies. Continue reading...

‘Real prospect’ 1998 attack by dissident republicans could have been thwarted, says Mr Justice HornerSecurity forces had a “real prospect” of preventing the 1998 Omagh bombing – the deadliest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles – a Belfast high court has ruled.Mr Justice Horner recommended on Friday that the British and Irish governments each undertake human rights compliant investigations into the bombing, which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injured 220 people. Continue reading...

With a blaze of indigo and white fireworks lighting the night sky, the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony has started. In a nearly empty national stadium, devoid of any crowd energy, it began with a single female athlete at the centre of the stadium, kneeling. As she stood, the shadow behind her took the shape of a seedling, growing as she walked. A number of athletes were featured in a video that started with the moment Tokyo won the Olympic bid in 2013, before showing images of a world silenced by the Covid pandemic

Left holding the can as your bosses jet off for the summer? Experts explain how to get the best out of it – from avoiding overwhelm to taking the chance to shineWe are approaching the summer holidays, a time when – for those of us still at our desks – workloads increase and responsibilities can soar. Here is some expert advice on how to survive and thrive when you’re the one left behind. Continue reading...

Hungary’s LGBT community expects high turnout for march on Saturday marking end of Pride monthSaturday’s Pride march in Budapest will be “a celebration, but also a protest”, organisers have said, as Hungary’s LGBT community prepares to rally in defiance of an escalating anti-gay campaign by the country’s government.Johanna Majercsik, one of the organisers of Pride month in Budapest, which culminates with the march, said she expected to see many more in attendance than the roughly 20,000 marchers who attended the last Pride march in the city, two years ago. Continue reading...

Amnesty says security forces used live ammunition on protesters while officials blame ‘opportunists’Iran is using unlawful and excessive force in a crackdown against protests over water shortages in its oil-rich but arid southwestern Khuzestan province, according to international rights groups.Amnesty International said it had confirmed the deaths of at least eight protesters and bystanders, including a teenage boy, after the authorities used live ammunition to quell the protests. Continue reading...

In the last seven days the UK government has flailed from one controversy or misstep to the next

The NSW deputy premier’s legal team has launched an attack on the YouTuber’s defence, labelling it ‘rubbish’John Barilaro boasting about pork barrelling government grants may be “the wrong thing to do”, but it does not show the New South Wales deputy premier is a corrupt conman, his lawyers have argued in court.On Friday the federal court held a lengthy pre-trial hearing in the deputy premier’s defamation case against the Youtube comedian Jordan Shanks. Continue reading...

Suzanne Heywood says process was set up to scapegoat the former civil servant and ‘distract attention’The widow of a former top civil servant who was heavily criticised in the UK government’s inquiry into the Greensill affair has described the process as a “travesty” set up to scapegoat her husband and “distract attention” from events after his death.Boris Johnson has already been accused of orchestrating a cover-up over the lobbying scandal after an official review mildly rebuked the former prime minister David Cameron. Continue reading...

Find could prove there were human settlements in area centuries before city was foundedThe discovery of the remains of a Roman road and dock submerged in the Venice lagoon could prove there were permanent human settlements in the area centuries before Venice was founded, researchers say.Scuba divers discovered what appeared to be paving stones beneath the lagoon in the 1980s, but only after more recent research were the relics confirmed to have formed part of a road system. Continue reading...

People are wearing costumes as a protest to the government’s handling of an outbreak that has killed more than 545,000When Klinger Duarte Rodrigues set off for his coronavirus shot last weekend he did so dressed as a South American snake.“A sucuri,” he said, using the indigenous name for the Amazonian water boa whose skin he borrowed for his first dose of AstraZeneca. Continue reading...

Open water advocates say bans and warnings aren’t working and better swimming education will save livesIt has been a week of tragedies in England’s waters. At least 17 people have drowned cooling off in the heatwave, including a man who went missing on a blow-up unicorn in a Wakefield lake and a 16-year-old boy in the River Dee near Chester.On Friday the Coastguard issued a plea to those visiting the coast to leave the inflatables at home and to “think twice” before taking risks in the sea. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service went further, saying: “We urge people not to go into open water, no matter how hot it is outside.” Continue reading...

NSW premier warns vaccine rollout is crucial to stop the virus seeping into other states as NSW records 136 local coronavirus cases

Visit comes as China tightens control over region’s Buddhist culture and invests heavily in infrastructureThe Chinese leader has made his first visit to Tibet as president as authorities tighten controls over the Himalayan region’s traditional Buddhist culture, accompanied by an accelerated drive for economic development and modernised infrastructure.State media reported on Friday that Xi Jinping had visited sites in the capital, Lhasa, including the Drepung monastery, Barkhor Street and the public square at the base of the Potala Palace that was home to the Dalai Lamas, Tibet’s traditional spiritual and temporal leaders. Continue reading...

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says 53 of the new NSW cases were infectious in the community; taskforce chief John Frewen says vaccines not the best way to deal with immediate outbreak; national cabinet to meet to discuss rollout. Follow live

Medals out of recycled phones, sewage-stopping sand and virtual clapping in the shadow of Covid-19 add up to a very different Olympic GamesThe greatest impact of Covid on the Games, other than the fact it is being held a year late, will be the absence of spectators. Venues won’t be silent, however, with “an immersive sound system” playing “sound created from previous Olympic Games” – which means that vocal ticket holders from many events at London 2012 will, in a manner of speaking, get to attend a second Olympics – while those watching at home will be able to “clap virtually” using an app. Continue reading...

The best records from those lost too soon, including a heavyweight hip-hop opus, a collection of intriguing demos and a haunted swansongThis week’s Welcome 2 America is the third posthumous Prince album to emerge since his death in 2016. Perhaps the most intriguing, however, is Originals, a collection of Prince’s original demos of songs later made famous by other artists (Manic Monday, Love… Thy Will Be Done, Nothing Compares 2 U). A tantalising glimpse into a restless genius’s artistic process. Continue reading...

The speed of the soul singer’s stardom left him reeling. As he releases his best album yet, he explains how he shook off his insecurities – and confronted love, loss and a racist USLeon Bridges leans back on a gold velvet couch at Gold-Diggers, a compound in east Hollywood that includes a hotel, nine recording studios, a bar and a live music venue. Here in Studio 2, sunlight streams down from a skylight, bathing Bridges’ sky-blue madras shirt and buttery-brown leather loafers in a soft glow. His sartorial combination places him somewhere between a soul singer and country star circa 1970.Now 32, Bridges was working as a dishwasher just seven years ago, vying for attention at open mic nights in his home town of Fort Worth, Texas. In 2015, he released his debut album, the Grammy-nominated Coming Home, and soon the sheltered Christian found himself performing his spiritual, gospel-imbued song River on Saturday Night Live and covering Ray Charles for the Obamas at the White House. Music journalists hailed this soul singer/songwriter as the second coming of Sam Cooke. Continue reading...

(Habibi Funk)

Shortages of beds and oxygen as Covid variant reaches areas with weaker healthcare systems

A familiar face from TV roles in The Night Manager and Industry, the Cairo-born actor is spellbinding in the upcoming independent film about asylum seekers in the Outer Hebrides. But does he owe his career to the Lawrence of Arabia star?Amir El-Masry has a gravely handsome face and a forehead that goes on for ever: he is like an Easter Island statue with matinee-idol looks. Audiences will have a lot of time to study that face in Limbo, a bittersweet British comedy about asylum seekers dispatched to a far corner of the Outer Hebrides (the film was shot in Uist) while their claims are processed.Related: Limbo review – heart-rending portrait of refugees stranded in Scotland Continue reading...

Fiame Naomi Mata’afa was confirmed by Samoa’s court of appeal to be the country’s first female prime minister, ending the 22-year reign of the former leaderSamoa’s months-long political crisis has been brought to a close and the Pacific nation has its first female prime minister after a ruling of the country’s court of appeal this afternoon.The Samoan court of appeal ruled that the Faatuatua ile Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party was the official winner of the national election in April and the ad hoc swearing-in ceremony held by the party out the front of parliament, when FAST MPs were denied entry to the building, was legitimate. Continue reading...

We must apply our own home-grown initiatives if we are to curb abuses of Africa’s most vulnerableOf all the unspeakable injustices suffered by Africa’s children – and I’ve witnessed many – violence is surely the worst because it is almost entirely preventable. Africa’s children suffer many hardships, including poverty, hunger and disease. Violence against children is avoidable, yet young people in Africa, especially girls, continue to live with sexual violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation, forced labour, corporal punishment and countless other forms of abuse.After decades spent trying to improve young people’s life chances, I had hoped to see at the very least a significant reduction in violence that threatens children. It is now 31 years since the adoption of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and we have seen some governments putting into place laws and policies aimed at ending violence against children. There have also been efforts, though insufficient, towards eradicating female genital mutilation and child marriage, which cause untold lifelong suffering. Continue reading...

Bindi Vora’s Mountain of Salt is a collection of found images and appropriated text conceived as a response to the Covid pandemic. The wry, sometimes humorous, text-based series of collages focuses on the language used over the past year and was developed from collecting words and sentences derived from politicians, journalists and other individuals. Vora says she is ‘interested in how we might unite and reflect on this time currently being experienced in our individual and collective ways, as we all live in the hope of clambering out and making it to the other side unscathed. This curious collection of phrases speaks to the dissemination of language and its effect upon us’Bindi Vora’s work is on display, alongside Alys Tomlinson’s Lost Summer, at Charing Cross hospital in London until September

Twenty years ago, it was made by juvenile men in shorts. Now, from Meet Me @ the Altar to Olivia Rodrigo, diverse young women have reclaimed the genre – and made it the sound of the summerA white man whining about high school, his mediocre hometown or a faceless girl: that is what most people picture when they think of pop punk. In the 90s and 00s, all-male bands such as Green Day, Blink-182, New Found Glory and Sum 41 ruled the charts, looking like Jackass extras in Dickies pants and wallet chains and sounding – albeit mildly – like rebellion. Now, though, a diverse group of women are emerging who have kept the genre’s sense of belligerence and fun, but are developing it to create something youthful that also has a quality those older bands eschewed – emotional maturity.Today’s pop punks go to therapy (I’m Gonna Tell My Therapist On You by Pinkshift) and sing self-reflectively about relationships. Their vocals recall the soprano gymnastics of the genre’s 00s matriarch, Paramore’s Hayley Williams more than her nasal male contemporaries. Pop punk has become a defining sound of 2021: Olivia Rodrigo’s splenetic Good 4 U recently spent five weeks at No 1 in the UK, the longest stretch for a rock song for 25 years, while Willow, the daughter of Will Smith, released a pop punk album last week that discusses her personal growth and confronts the fake people in her life. Continue reading...

Locals in Efrat, an Israeli settlement with US cultural links, give their views on the ban on sales to occupied territoriesThere are blue skies and green grass outside and inside Pizzeria Efrat, a restaurant in a settlement of the same name in the occupied West Bank.Outside, the pizza parlour is surrounded by lush parks and wide, quiet roads. Inside, the famous cartoon cows on tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream greet customers from no fewer than three branded freezer cabinets, stacks of red pizza boxes piled up behind them. Continue reading...

Human rights groups say latest series of arrests and searches are part of ‘a total purge on civil society’The government of Belarus has launched a broad crackdown on civil society, launching raids and arrests on dozens of organisations in what has been described as a “black week” for the country’s NGOs.The raids, which began last week, have touched all corners of civil society, from groups that campaign for political prisoners’ rights to those that crowdfund medical care and have helped medics in the fight against coronavirus. Continue reading...

Living in lockdown with small children means distracting them with the same thing, over and over again, until you – like Ben Jenkins – are driven insaneEvery parent of a young child in lockdown either knows this fact or is about to learn it: you don’t get to choose where they find their joy.For example, my two and half year old son likes to listen to the Thomas and Friends Storytime podcast. It is, by some margin, his favourite thing to do. By a similar margin, the opening “toot toot” of the podcast is my least favourite sound on the entire planet, which now activates my fight or flight reflex every time I hear it. But due to some quirk of evolution, I find myself unable to deny my boy his train show, as it gives him the kind of happiness unattainable to adults without the use of class-A drugs. Continue reading...

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian calls coronavirus spread in Sydney a 'a national emergency' as state records another death and 136 new cases of Covid-19. Berejiklian says, 'we need to have a discussion about refocusing the national vaccination strategy' and says NSW needs more Pfizer vaccines for the young population in south-west Sydney. Chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said, 'I have advised the government today that this is a national emergency, and requires additional measures to reduce the case numbers'► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTubeFollow the Australia Covid live blog as NSW records 136 new casesNSW restrictions; NSW hotspots; border restrictionsVaccine rollout tracker Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern pauses flights for eight weeks as her health chief says the spread in NSW was ‘clearly not under control’

Six people missing after boat sank just 150 metres from Nissan Island, with lone survivor swimming 15 kilometres to neighbouring islandAuthorities in Bougainville are still searching for the autonomous region’s health minister after he and his family went missing in rough seas at the weekend.Charry Napto, his wife and son were among seven people on board a banana boat which was travelling to Nissan Island from Buka, the capital of Bougainville, on Saturday. Continue reading...

Driver of car, 79, believed to have suffered a medical episode before crashing in PontyclunSix people have been taken to hospital after a car ploughed into a crowd outside a pub in south Wales.Police were called to the serious incident on Llantrisant Road, Pontyclun at about 8.30pm on Thursday, sparking a huge emergency services response. Continue reading...

Lords report calls on the government to ensure support remains in place to help late applicants secure their statusSignificant numbers of Europeans in the UK aged over 65 failed to apply to the EU settlement scheme (EUSS) before the deadline, a parliamentary report has found, warning that this could make thousands of retirement-aged EU nationals vulnerable to Britain’s hostile environment policies.Just 2% of all applications for the settlement scheme were submitted by people aged over 65, a percentage that is unlikely to reflect the population of older EU nationals living in the UK. Charities supporting older Europeans to apply said they had “encountered many individuals who have no mobile phone, no digital access and inappropriate or no documentation”, and the report warned that people who struggled with the digital technology required to apply were more likely to have missed the deadline for applications at the end of last month. Continue reading...

Once There Was a Bear by Jane Riordan and Mark Burgess will channel the original books’ voice and pictorial style using details from Christopher Robin’s real lifeThe story of how Winnie-the-Pooh went from a Harrods toy shelf to the home of Christopher Robin and the Hundred Acre Wood is set to be told for the first time, in an official prequel to AA Milne’s original stories.Winnie-the-Pooh: Once There Was a Bear has been written in the style of Milne by children’s writer Jane Riordan, with illustrations by Mark Burgess emulating the original drawings of EH Shepard. It is the first prequel to Milne’s books and poetry about the bear, and has been authorised by the estates of both Milne and Shepard. Continue reading...

Visit by deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman on Sunday follows reported standoff over diplomatic protocolAmid escalating diplomatic tensions, the US deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, will travel to China this Sunday to meet with senior Chinese diplomats in the highest-level visit since the US climate envoy John Kerry’s trip to Shanghai in April.Sherman’s upcoming trip will not have the trappings of a fully fledged official visit. She will – according to a Chinese statement – “hold talks” with Xie Feng, a vice-minister in charge of the bilateral relations, and “meet” with Wang Yi, China’s state councilor and foreign minister. Continue reading...

Friday: It’s been nearly four weeks in lockdown for Sydney, but experts say it will take more than the current restrictions to bring Covid case numbers down. Plus: cockatoos get wheelie good at opening binsGood morning. National cabinet meets today to discuss the worsening Covid outbreaks and progress on the vaccine rollout, a UN committee votes on the status of the Great Barrier Reef tonight and cockatoos in Sydney are learning to open wheelie bins. Here are the main stories for this Friday.As Sydney approaches four weeks in lockdown, the number of Covid cases infectious in the community remains stubbornly high. On Thursday, 124 new local cases were announced in New South Wales. But experts and the state health authorities are divided on the best ways to reduce transmission and bring cases down close to zero before restrictions can be eased. It comes as figures show the NSW government has taken up just 145,000 of the almost 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine allocated to it by the commonwealth, leaving vaccines to either stockpile or be directed overseas. Amid the latest outbreak, NSW opted only to accept Pfizer vaccines from the federal government, because of what it says is a lack of demand for AstraZeneca. Continue reading...

Biden moves to pressure government over alleged human rights abuses amid biggest demonstrations in decadesThe US has imposed sanctions on a Cuban security minister and an interior ministry special forces unit for alleged human rights abuses in a crackdown on anti-government protests this month.The move marked the first concrete steps by Joe Biden’s administration to apply pressure on Cuba’s Communist government as it faces calls from US lawmakers and the Cuban American community to show greater support for the biggest protests to hit the island in decades. Continue reading...

Moscow owes 18.5m doses, leaving Argentina in a ‘very critical situation’ with only 12% fully vaccinated, leaked letter revealsArgentina’s gamble on Sputnik V vaccine has left it in a “very critical situation” because of Russia’s failure to fulfill delivery commitments, according to an official letter to Moscow leaked on Thursday.Russia owes Argentina 18.5m doses of its Sputnik V jab, over two-thirds of them vital second-component doses.

Government seeks to drive up vaccination rate amid resurgence in coronavirus infections

Eve Hibbert, who was presumed dead at the scene, believed to be ‘only person’ to have survived such brain injuries

Exclusive: Just 145,000 of the almost 1m doses allocated by federal government have been taken up, leaving jabs to stockpile or be donated overseas

Mexico wants Israel to arrest Tomás Zerón, accused of kidnapping, torturing suspects, manipulating evidence and embezzlementMexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has urged Israel to cooperate in extraditing a former top investigator wanted in connection with the disappearance of 43 students in 2014.Mexico wants Israel to arrest Tomás Zerón, who headed the Criminal Investigation Agency, over allegations of serious irregularities in the inquiry into one of the country’s worst human rights tragedies. Continue reading...

Police officers in England and Wales furious at pay freeze after months on frontline of Covid crisisRank-and-file police officers have overwhelmingly supported a vote of no confidence in the home secretary, Priti Patel, the first such move in more than a decade.In a scathing announcement, the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW), which represents 130,000 officers, said Patel and the government “could not be trusted” and warned “warm words were not enough”. Continue reading...

Always the diplomatic politician, forever the objective scientist, Germany’s chancellor gives her last annual summer press doAs she faced a lecture-hall sized auditorium packed with national and international press for the last time in her 16-year chancellorship, there was a sense that the room was simultaneously hearing from two very different people in Angela Merkel.One was Merkel the politician, unafraid to talk up her achievements, who patted herself on the back for diplomatic victories and expertly fudged answers to difficult questions. The other was Merkel the scientist, who found it hard to skirt around uncomfortable truths and instinctively wanted to scrutinise her doppelgänger’s track record. Continue reading...

The country is one of the largest recipients of western aid, and yet poverty and unemployment remain rife, write two healthcare professionalsIn response to Benny Dembitzer’s letter (20 July), we are currently working in Tanzania, one of the largest recipients of western aid in the world. We are doing research with the Hadza people, investigating the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in that population. In comparison to our observations from 2018, it appears that very little development has occurred in Tanzania. If anything, Tanzanians appear to be poorer and there appears to be more unemployed people now, which, given the challenges of Covid, is even more worrying. This highlights that the current aid model is not fit for purpose and western governments should rethink the way they support Tanzania and other countries urgently.In the medical field, we are finding that progress has been halted, and probably reversed. One of the causes is that the rich world takes so many doctors, nurses and other health professionals from the developing world. Countries such as Tanzania have educated these professionals at their expense. We collect the ripe fruits.