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Updated 2026-03-31 19:30
Sing when you’re winning – take our Euro 2020 football anthems quiz
Do you know your Ant from your Dec and your Three Lions from your Atomic Kitten? Find out with our tricky and slightly silly quizThey are the soundtrack to our summers of joy and despair. The songs that accompany the moments when our hearts soar as goals go in, and break as crucial penalties are missed. But how much do you know about the football tournament anthems that fans sing with such glee? Find out with our football anthems quiz – getting full marks is going to be harder than getting a ticket for Wembley on Sunday. But remember, it is just for fun, and unlike the forthcoming Italy v England Euro 2020 final, there are no prizes.The Guardian Euro 2020 football anthems quiz Continue reading...
Stillwater review – fictionalised Amanda Knox drama is so bad it’s bad
Matt Damon is woefully miscast as a rash, violent loser in Tom McCarthy’s calamitous reworking of the notorious murder caseTom McCarthy is the director who gave us the Oscar-winning Spotlight, an estimable film. But this is one to forget: a muddled, tonally misjudged, badly acted, uncertainly directed and frankly dubious drama, something that falls into the so-bad-it’s-bad bracket. It’s hamfistedly inspired by the Amanda Knox case, the young American woman who was acquitted having spent four years in an Italian prison after the murder in 2007 of her roommate in Perugia, the British exchange student Meredith Kercher. This film creates a fictional quasi-Knox figure and fatuously convicts this made-up character of a certain muddled wrongdoing that the real Amanda Knox may very well feel she should not be smeared with.The action is moved to Marseille in France. Abigail Breslin plays Allison Baker, a young woman from Stillwater, Oklahoma, a visiting American student who has been convicted of murdering her lover and is now serving time in prison there. Matt Damon plays Allison’s dad Bill, a construction worker. He comes out to Marseille (presumably on a tourist visa, though he appears to stay indefinitely, doing building-site jobs) . But now he is consumed with the need to solve the case, prove his daughter’s innocence and catch the guy who actually did it. Continue reading...
Wayne Couzens pleads guilty to murdering Sarah Everard
Serving Met officer abducted 33-year-old from street in south London in March before killing herA serving police officer has admitted murdering Sarah Everard after abducting her from the street as she walked home in south London.The Metropolitan police constable Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty on Friday to her murder at the Old Bailey, having admitted to her kidnap and rape at an earlier hearing. Continue reading...
My summer of love: ‘I’m in search of the perfect fleeting encounter’
Who needs for ever? I want a summer of beautiful vignettes. As a friend told me, the length of a relationship needn’t reflect its significanceA friend of mine told me about this guy she met in the queue at Tesco Metro. They both lunged for the same meatball wrap, and he said: “This is like the part in the film where we fall in love,” which didn’t happen but they did go to the pub and then to a nightclub, where they stood so close to the speakers they could feel the sound in the air as if it were wind. When the lights came on, they headed back to his flat and had great sex, watched by a Simon Cowell cutout he had left over from a party. After climbing out of a window on to the roof of his flat, she stayed until the sky turned from flamingo pink to lilac, to dark blue, and it was time for her to go home and get some sleep.“I was going to ask for his number but it was so perfect, I told him, ‘If it’s meant to be, I’ll see you out again.’” Continue reading...
Experience: I lived in an airport for seven months
I slept under the escalator, surrounded by plastic barriers – the PA announcements would jerk me awakeI was working as the marketing manager for an insurance company in Abu Dhabi when civil war broke out in Syria, the country of my birth. I’d left five years earlier, aged 25, but military service in Syria is mandatory, and the outbreak of war meant I would be expected to return. But I didn’t want any role in the killing machine.When I refused to join the army, the Syrian embassy wouldn’t renew my passport. Without it, I couldn’t extend my work visa, so I was out of a job. For the next few years, I was forced to live under the radar – remaining in the United Arab Emirates illegally. I sold my belongings and worked off-grid when I could, sleeping in public gardens or stairwells. At the end of 2016, I was finally taken in by the police. After two months in an immigration detention jail, I was deported to Malaysia. Continue reading...
Australia Covid live update: Morrison doesn’t rule out further financial support as NSW records 44 new coronavirus cases
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says 29 of the new cases were infectious in the community as new restrictions announced for Sydney; state and territory leaders meet with PM to discuss the vaccine rollout. Follow latest updates
Hot air balloon crash near Queenstown in New Zealand injures all 11 passengers
Medical crews said the injured people were scattered over an area the length of a football fieldA hot air balloon crashed as it was about to land in New Zealand on Friday, injuring all 11 people on board, including two who suffered serious injuries and were airlifted to a hospital.Sunrise Balloons said the hour-long trip near Queenstown had been uneventful and was operating within normal wind speeds when the pilot attempted to land on a private airstrip just before 10am. Continue reading...
‘We need people to heal’: after 10 years of conflict South Sudan’s women seek peace
The country’s first decade has been marked by civil war, sexual violence and poverty. But women are working to gain justice for victims and hope for changeWhen Gloria Soma left university in Tanzania in 2013, she decided to head for the homeland she had never really known. Her parents had left southern Sudan in the early 1990s and she had grown up in refugee camps overseas, first in Uganda during the “hard times” of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and then in Kenya. While she was immersed in her studies, the Republic of South Sudan was born, the 193rd country to join the UN. And she wanted to go.“It was quite exciting for me because I thought that … I would go back and there were going to be many opportunities and it would be a peaceful place for everyone to live in,” says Soma. “There was already some sense of belonging. Because, as much as I had stayed most of my life in the east African region, there’d always been [the question of] ‘where do you belong?’ There was that bit of me [that felt] ‘finally, we are going to belong somewhere’. But it didn’t happen.” Continue reading...
Covid border restrictions and closures: where you can and can’t travel within Australia – and to New Zealand
Planning a trip across state borders or a weekend away? Before you leave home, check our state-by-state guide to coronavirus travel restrictions and border closures to see if you can travel into or out of Sydney, from NSW to Qld, or to Victoria, SA, WA, NT or NZ
Super-producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis: ‘Prince sidelined us’
The duo started their debut album 36 years ago, but work for Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and others got in the way. Now it’s finally complete, R&B’s great studio psychologists look back at an unmatched careerSome albums take a long time to make, but few have had the gestation period of Jam & Lewis: Volume One. The production duo started work on their debut artist album 36 years ago, just as their career was taking off on the back of the SOS Band’s hit single Just Be Good to Me, but they were thrown off-course working for a minor figure with a couple of flop albums to her name: Janet Jackson.Together they started shaping what would become her 10m-selling 1986 breakthrough Control, which understandably “kind of stopped the progress on our own album”, as Jimmy “Jam” Harris, 62, puts it today, when he and his partner, Terry Lewis, 64, appear on a video call from their homes in Los Angeles. With Control ready to be delivered, they wrote a song for themselves that sounded the perfect calling-card for a Jam & Lewis album. “We thought we were done with Control, then Janet’s manager came to hear the album,” says Harris. “We played him Nasty, When I Think Of You, The Pleasure Principle … And he says: ‘I just need one more song, for Janet.’ I’m going: ‘No, man, no.’ We get in the car to go to a restaurant, Terry puts a cassette in, and about the third song in, Janet’s manager says: ‘That’s the song I need.’” Continue reading...
EU votes for diplomats to boycott China Winter Olympics over rights abuses
Non-binding resolution also calls for governments to impose further sanctions on China as tensions riseThe European parliament has overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on diplomatic officials to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in response to continuing human rights abuses by the Chinese government.In escalating tensions between the EU and China, the non-binding resolution also called for governments to impose further sanctions, provide emergency visas to Hong Kong journalists and further support Hongkongers to move to Europe. Continue reading...
‘It will be a catastrophe’: fate of Syria’s last aid channel rests in Russia’s hands
Possible veto of Bab al-Hawa UN aid crossing could halt the flow of vital food and health supplies to 3.4 million peopleJust over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings. Continue reading...
‘If we win, you’ll be sad’: London’s Little Italy torn over Euro 2020 final
England showdown fuels mixed emotions for Italians who call Clerkenwell neighbourhood homeThe prospect of Sunday’s Euro 2020 final between England and Italy is a “tragic situation”, according to a priest at the Italian church in London. With a pained expression, he says: “I’m Italian, but I live in England and love English people, but now you have become our foes.”The priest is so troubled by the upcoming game that he refuses to give his name. Speaking after giving a mass at St Peter’s church, in the heart of Little Italy in Clerkenwell, he adds: “England is the only team we don’t want to face. If we win, you’ll be sad and I don’t want the English people to be sad. If you win, I’ll be sad and you can’t console me.” Continue reading...
Florida entrepreneur accused by Haiti of taking part in Jovenel Moïse killing
James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in connection with the killing at the presidential residenceThe Haitian government has accused a Florida entrepreneur and former security guard of being involved in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in Port-au-Prince in connection with Wednesday’s killing at the presidential residence. The other was named as Joseph Vincent, but there is little known about him. Continue reading...
Why is ‘Cat Person’ going viral again?
The literary sensation from 2017 is trending again. But this time it’s because of a real-life storyHelen, I am seeing that awful close-up picture of mouths kissing on my timeline again and hesitate to ask, but why?The short story Cat Person is in the news once more, because a woman named Alexis Nowicki has written an essay for Slate in which she explains that she is the real-life cat person the Cat Person story is based on, and that her ex-boyfriend is the other cat person in the story, and that he was actually a lovely person in real life and really did have cats and wasn’t pretending, unlike in the story. Continue reading...
What’s in the England team’s names? English Heritage explains all
St George’s flags featuring surnames of almost every person in England will fly from heritage sites to cheer on teamHarry Kane can trace his surname back to a word for “warrior”. Declan Rice to “impetuous”. Kieran Trippier to “dance”. Kyle Walker will have to make do with “trampler of cloth in a bath of lye” which, to be fair, was once a very important job.English Heritage is getting in the football spirit by revealing the origins of the names of the England players. It will also fly a St George’s flag featuring the surname of almost every person living in England at its properties to help cheer on the team before Sunday’s Euro 2020 final against Italy. Continue reading...
My summer of love: ‘Every time he kissed another girl, my heart broke’
One hot teenage summer, I made a lifelong friend. Years later, it turned out there was much more between usIt was the summer of 2000 when I fell in love. I would love to say it was hot, but it was probably raining; weather doesn’t bother you when you’re 14 and smitten. My baggy jeans were drenched in south London gutter scum, with knee-high puddle water stains and my try-hard skater shoes that had never once touched a skateboard, ugly as hell and a size too big.
Iran and Russia move to fill diplomatic vacuum in Afghanistan
Iranian foreign minister meets Taliban negotiators in Tehran, while Turkey offers troops to protect Kabul airportIran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia have moved to fill the military and diplomatic vacuum opening up in Afghanistan as a result of the departure of US forces and military advances by the Taliban.In Tehran the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future. Continue reading...
NSW Covid update: stronger restrictions for Sydney as Gladys Berejiklian flags lockdown extension
Premier says it’s concerning 29 out of 44 new coronavirus cases were out in the community during their infectious period
Haiti president assassination: 26 Colombians, two US-Haitians took part in Jovenel Moïse killing, police say
Seventeen captured men paraded in front of journalists, as police chief says another three were killed and eight remain on the runA heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities have said, as the hunt goes on for the masterminds of the killing.Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence. Continue reading...
South Korea raises Covid restrictions to highest level in Seoul
Previously held up as a model of how to combat pandemic, country was slow to start vaccine rollout and is now reporting record daily cases
Pfizer says no change to Australian Covid vaccine doses, contradicting reports of ‘game-changing’ deal
Prime minister Scott Morrison says pace of vaccination rollout accelerating
Plane carrying skydivers crashes in Sweden, killing nine
Plane went down near runway shortly after takeoff from Orebro and caught fire on impactNine people have been found dead after a skydiving airplane crashed outside Orebro in Sweden.
Pfizer to ask US to authorize third Covid vaccine shot as booster
Evidence shows a greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation as Israel reports a drop in vaccine effectivenessPfizer plans to ask US regulators to authorize a booster dose of its Covid-19 vaccine within the next month, the drugmaker’s top scientist said on Thursday.The announcement was based on evidence of greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation and due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus. Continue reading...
Coronavirus live news: Tokyo Olympics to be held without spectators; jabs mandatory for some workers in Greece
Games organisers agree to hold events without fans; Greece to unveil plans to mandate vaccination for specific professional groups next week
Brexit ‘divorce bill’ higher than UK’s forecasts, Brussels estimates
Figure of £40.8bn buried in EU’s 2020 accounts dismissed by UK as not reflecting amount it will payThe UK’s Brexit “divorce bill” is €47.5bn (£40.8bn) according to estimates from Brussels that are higher than the government’s forecasts.The first tranche, €6.8bn, is due for payment by the end of the year. Continue reading...
Morning mail: Sydney Covid crackdown, Barty reaches Wimbledon final, Haiti reels
Friday: western Sydney residents feel ‘scapegoated’ amid police crackdown. Plus: Tokyo Olympics bans spectatorsGood morning. Western Sydney residents say they are being “scapegoated” as New South Wales police announced a major compliance crackdown, including 100 extra officers and mounted police. Cumberland City councillor Kun Huang argued the police operation was harsher on the western suburbs than it had been in more affluent parts of Sydney. NSW recorded 38 new local Covid cases on Thursday – the highest daily number since the Sydney outbreak began. Of those 20 people were in the community for part or all of their infectious period. Gladys Berejiklian, said the daily case numbers were “too high” but that it was still “achievable” for the lockdown to end next Friday, “assuming everybody does the right thing”. Meanwhile, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said the death of a woman from a very rare blood clotting condition was “likely” linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine – Australia’s third death related to the shot.Ash Barty has produced one of the highest quality big-match performances of her career, outplaying the former champion Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-6 (3) to reach her first Wimbledon final. Barty loves grass. She won the girls’ title here as a 15-year-old a decade ago, has a game that is perfectly suited to the fast, low bounce and has frequently said she spends much of the season counting down the days until the grass arrives again. While Barty tends to be wary of revealing too many of her ambitions, before this tournament she made it clear that winning the title was an ultimate goal. Continue reading...
Biden says no ‘mission accomplished moment’ as US troops withdraw from Afghanistan – video
Joe Biden has said the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war will conclude on 31 August and added there will be no ‘mission accomplished’ moment to celebrate. ‘We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,’ the US president said. ’It is the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.’His remarks come as the Taliban makes advances in the country, which some senior Afghan officials have blamed on the abrupt departure of US troops
Australians fear attack from China almost as much as Taiwanese do, survey finds
More than four in 10 Australians think Chinese are coming and analysts say that’s partly due to government’s ‘drums of war’ rhetoric
Man, 29, arrested on suspicion of murdering teenager in London
Keane Flynn-Harling, 16, was stabbed to death on Monday night in LambethA 29-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a teenager was stabbed to death in south London, the Metropolitan police has said.The boy, who has been named as 16-year-old Keane Flynn-Harling, was discovered suffering from stab injuries on Monday night in Lambeth. Continue reading...
Haiti security forces arrest six alleged gunmen after president’s assassination
Seven reportedly killed as angry civilians seize suspects following a brazen killing surrounded by claims of foreign involvementSix people, including one US citizen, have been arrested and seven reportedly killed as Haitian security forces pursued the gunmen responsible for the assassination of the Caribbean country’s president, Jovenel Moïse.As Haiti reeled following the first assassination of a serving president in the Americas since John F Kennedy’s 1963 shooting, there were chaotic scenes in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Thursday. Angry civilians reportedly apprehended two male suspects while police laid siege to two buildings in which other suspected assassins were supposedly holed up. Continue reading...
Venezuela: intense gun battles rage in Caracas between gangs and police
The Guardian view on the heat dome: burning through the models | Editorial
Politicians must respond to the latest warnings that climate science has underestimated risksLast week’s shockingly high temperatures in the northwestern US and Canada were – and are – very frightening. Heat and the fires it caused killed hundreds of people, and are estimated to have killed a billion sea creatures. Daily temperature records were smashed by more than 5C (9F) in some places. In Lytton, British Columbia, the heat reached 49.6C (121F). The wildfires that consumed the town produced their own thunderstorms, alongside thousands of lightning strikes.An initial study shows human activity made this heat dome – in which a ridge of high pressure acts as a lid preventing warm air from escaping – at least 150 times more likely. The World Weather Attribution Group of scientists, who use computer climate models to assess global heating trends and extreme weather, have warned that last week exceeded even their worst-case scenarios. While it has long been recognised that the climate system has thresholds or tipping points beyond which humans stand to lose control of what happens, scientists did not hide their alarm that an usually cool part of the Pacific northwest had been turned into a furnace. One climatologist said the prospect opened up by the heat dome “blows my mind”. Continue reading...
Jacob Zuma could be free in months after handing himself in
South Africa’s justice minister says former president could be paroled after four months of 15-month sentenceSouth Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, whose decision to hand himself in to police to serve a 15-month jail term has been greeted as a victory for the troubled country’s efforts to enforce the rule of law, could be free in four months, the justice minister has said.The minister, Ronald Lamola, told journalists outside the prison where Zuma was being held on Thursday that the former leader would be eligible for parole either because his sentence was less than two years or for medical reasons. Continue reading...
Football’s coming to Rome? Italy fans look to Wembley showdown
Italians are excited for the Euro 2020 final against England: ‘If we play with the heart, we will win’Tens of thousands of English football fans at Wembley tried to send a message to Italy on Wednesday night: Sunday’s Euro 2020 final will be hell for the Azzurri. Italians heard the deafening cheers of the home support loud and clear, but that chant, “It’s coming home”, screamed at the top of English lungs does not seem to have affected them greatly. They are far from intimidated.“It’s coming home? Maybe the English fans meant ‘it’s coming to Rome’,” said Giovanni Mapelli, 14, from Monticello Brianza, near Milan, who plays for a local football team. Since England won a place in the final, he and his brother have been mocking his England-born-and-raised mother. Continue reading...
Two decades of Indigenous photography: the work of Wayne Quilliam – in pictures
For more than 20 years, Aboriginal photographer Wayne Quilliam has captured significant Indigenous events across Australia, from the national apology to the Stolen Generations to the Garma, Barunga and Yeperenye festivals. In his travels through country, Quilliam often visits communities to teach Indigenous youth how to capture their own lives through a lens. His book, Culture is Life, is a modern, photographic celebration of the diversity of Indigenous Australians Continue reading...
Haiti: police kill suspects in gun battle after assassination of president –video report
An already struggling and chaotic Haiti is reeling from the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, followed by a reported gun battle in which authorities said police killed four of the murder suspects. Officials have pledged to find all those responsible for the raid on Moïse’s house before dawn on Wednesday. The government has declared a two-week state of emergency to help it hunt the assassins.
Haiti reels from murder of president as police hunt assassins
Two-week state of emergency declared as officers reportedly kill four suspects in gun battle after Jovenel Moïse’s deathA struggling and chaotic Haiti is reeling from the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse followed by a reported gun battle in which authorities said police killed four of the murder suspects, detained two others and freed three officers who were being held hostage.With Port-au-Prince’s airport still closed and residents asked to remain at home, rumours and speculation continued to swirl around the murky circumstances of Moïse’s murder. Continue reading...
‘This is disgraceful’: EU parliament condemns Hungary’s anti-LGBT law
Resolution is passed to launch legal action, but Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán remains defiantThe European parliament has denounced a Hungarian law that bans gay people from appearing in educational materials or primetime TV as “a clear breach” of equality.In a resolution voted in Strasbourg on Thursday by a resounding majority, MEPs condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Hungarian law as “a clear breach of the EU’s values, principles and law”, while urging the European Commission to launch a fast-track legal case against Viktor Orbán’s government. Continue reading...
Taliban close in on Helmand capital as UK Afghan mission ends
Lashkar Gah still under control of government forces but local activist says city is under siegeAs Boris Johnson announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters pressed in on the capital of Helmand province, once the centre of the UK’s presence there.Militants are less than a mile from Lashkar Gah, now also home to tens of thousands of people who fled the fighting or Taliban rule across the rest of the province, local officials said. Continue reading...
A civilised country is one that treats refugees with compassion | Letters
Members of Exiled Writers Ink respond in horror to Priti Patel’s plans to create offshore centres to process asylum seekers. Plus Dr Liz Curran pleads with the UK not to follow Australia’s dehumanising policy and Pat Beesley wonders when we stopped treating refugees like human beingsWe are refugee and migrant writers living in Britain who are members of Exiled Writers Ink, and we are horrified at Priti Patel’s new proposals for dealing with refugees and asylum seekers (Priti Patel to reveal proposals for offshore centres for asylum seekers, 5 July). Having suffered intolerable ordeals to reach the UK, undergoing pain or terror, whether in our countries of origin or on our journeys, we need to be treated with humanity, decency and respect.The bill should exercise compassion rather than criminalise refugees simply because they are forced to deploy unconventional methods to enter the country. The reason for the dangerous and illegal journeys into the UK is the draconian system that prevents refugees from entering this country through legal means. Crucially, Patel needs to be aware of the grave danger of returning migrants to their home countries, given that numerous regimes would be only too pleased to receive the deportees in order to kill them. Continue reading...
The Velvet Underground’s greatest songs –ranked!
As Todd Haynes unveils his documentary about them, we rate the best work of a band who overturned and reinvented rock’n’rollThe Velvets recorded two versions of Ride Into the Sun: a fabulous 1969 instrumental laden with fuzz guitar and a hushed 1970 vocal take backed by organ. Somewhere between the two lies one of their great lost songs; Lou Reed’s disappointingly flat 1972 solo version doesn’t do it justice at all. Continue reading...
Edward Mortimer obituary
Speechwriter for Kofi Annan at the United Nations who drew on his experience as a commentator for British newspapersIn 1998 Edward Mortimer, who has died aged 77, joined the staff of the UN secretary general Kofi Annan as chief speechwriter and later director of communications. Since the UN’s foundation at the end of the second world war, its leadership had often lacked breadth and depth of vision, with the exception of the eight years under the Swede Dag Hammarskjöld until his death in a plane crash in Africa in 1961.Like him, Annan, who was from Ghana, believed that the UN represented more than the sum of its member states, and could act as a prime mover in undertaking initiatives. Now, once more, the words of the secretary general mattered, moved, provoked and were remembered, and Mortimer had a key role in making that happen. Continue reading...
Rainn Wilson: ‘I had agents who were, like: You need to get your teeth fixed, build loads of muscles’
He may have an impressive film CV, but the actor is destined to be remembered as The Office’s resident dork. He talks about why he was perfect for the role, his new movie, Don’t Tell a Soul – and his love for Steve CooganSome actors associated with a signature role will tire of talking about it. No such preciousness from Rainn Wilson, who appears on camera from his Los Angeles home wearing a grey T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Scranton”. That Pennsylvania city provided the setting for the US version of the mockumentary sitcom The Office, which ran for nine widely adored, award-winning series. Wilson earned three Emmy nominations for playing the livid, disagreeable Dwight, the Rust Belt equivalent of Mackenzie Crook’s Gareth. Today’s beard and baseball cap, as well as his chipper demeanour, banishes all memory of the pasty face, DIY haircut and startled expression he wore in that show.Wilson has starred in everything from Juno to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the Jason Statham shark thriller The Meg, but he knows that any conversation will inevitably lead back to The Office. “Dwight is the part I’m best known for and always will be,” says the 55-year-old. “And that’s fine with me.” First, though, there is his new thriller to discuss. In Don’t Tell a Soul, a cross between A Simple Plan and Paranoid Park, he plays an unassuming security guard who gives chase after encountering two teenage brothers (Fionn Whitehead and Jack Dylan Grazer) stealing from a house in rural Kentucky. During the pursuit, he plunges into a hole in the forest floor, which leaves the boys with absolute power over him. The question is not whether they will use it, but how. Continue reading...
Boris Johnson announces end to UK military mission in Afghanistan
Labour says ‘washing hands’ of conflict now could lead to bloodier war and wider Taliban controlBoris Johnson has announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan following a hasty and secretive exit of the last remaining troops 20 years after the post 9/11 invasion that started the “war on terror”.The prime minister confirmed to MPs that the intervention, which claimed the lives of 457 British soldiers, would end even as the insurgent Taliban were rapidly gaining territory in rural areas, as UK, US and other forces withdrew. Continue reading...
‘It’s all up in the air’: wary Haitians stay home as power struggle looms
Details of assassination of President Jovenel Moïse emerge as political uncertainty grips nationDisturbing details of the murder of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, are emerging as the Caribbean country grapples with the fallout from what was officially the first assassination of a serving president in the Americas since the shooting of John F Kennedy in 1963.Moïse, who had been facing mounting public anger over what critics called his reluctance to relinquish power, was shot dead in the early hours of Wednesday at his home in a wealthy suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The first lady, Martine Moïse, was wounded and evacuated to Miami where she is reportedly in a stable condition. Continue reading...
Leicestershire PCC bans staff from contact with Black Lives Matter
Conservative Rupert Matthews claims BLM ‘wants to defund the police and has put officers in hospital’The police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire has said he has banned his staff from communicating with Black Lives Matter groups.In a diary-style article for Conservative Home, Rupert Matthews wrote that on his third day in office he told his staff not to have any contact with BLM. Continue reading...
John Challis: ‘The Rolling Stones rhythm section were big fans of Only Fools and Horses’
The actor best known as Boycie on his school skiffle band, novelty Christmas single, early days as an estate agent and being called backstage by Bill WymanI grew up with the skiffle artists of the 50s such as the Vipers and Lonnie Donegan. You could play most of the songs if you had a guitar, so we formed a band: Johnny and the Bandit. That sort of music was banned at my school, so we had to practise in the changing rooms. The acoustics were good because it was quite echoey. We had a couple of guitars, a banjo and even a washboard. I was the singer. We thought we were the business. Plus, we were doing something illegal, which made it even more exciting. Continue reading...
Italian Covid victims’ families claim compensation from government
Court in Rome hears lawyers say authorities moved too little, too late to tackle pandemic
Hungary fines bookshop chain over picture book depicting LGBT families
Líra Könyv made to pay £600 for failing to clearly indicate the story featured ‘a family that is different than a normal family’A bookshop chain in Hungary has been fined for selling a children’s story depicting a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents, with officials condemning the picture book for featuring such families.The picture book, Micsoda család!, is a Hungarian translation combining two titles by US author Lawrence Schimel and illustrator Elīna Brasliņa: Early One Morning, which shows a young boy’s morning with his two mothers, and Bedtime, Not Playtime!, in which a young girl with two fathers is reluctant to go to sleep. Continue reading...
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