Albert Dupontel stars in his own hectic romp, which tries and fails to be funny about disability and dyingBafflement has to be the chief response to this laboured, weirdly misjudged comedy from French actor and film-maker Albert Dupontel, supposedly inspired by the anarchic spirit of Terry Gilliam, who has been credited for “participation exceptionelle” and gets a wacky cameo. It’s also dedicated to the memory of Terry Jones.But in fact this is a frantically French romp in the commercial mainstream, about as far from Python as it’s possible to get. (The original French title, Adieu Les Cons!, put me in mind of Francis Veber’s similarly strained satire Le Dîner de Cons.) Virginie Efira – not a comedy natural – plays Suze, a woman dying of a bronchial disorder, of all hilarious things. Before she dies, she wants to find the child she was forced to give up as an unmarried teen mother. But while she is at the government office begging for help, that department’s IT technician, Monsieur Cuchas (Dupontel), depressed at being passed over for promotion, shouts the phrase in the title and makes a bizarrely botched attempt to kill himself in the neighbouring office, accidentally shooting the young man being so unhelpful to Suze. Continue reading...

The photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was shot dead last week while documenting the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan. His award-winning work for Reuters spanned some of the world’s most era-defining crises.

Books tried to explain the pro-democracy movement, portraying supporters as sheep surrounded by wolvesFive members of a Hong Kong union behind a series of children’s books about sheep trying to hold back wolves from their village have been arrested for sedition.The arrests by the new national security police unit, which is spearheading a sweeping crackdown on dissent, are the latest action against pro-democracy activists since huge and often violent protests convulsed the city two years ago. Continue reading...

Emma Goldberg followed doctors when Covid first hit New York. Now, as the Delta variant surges across the US, she retells the story of an ICU physician during the horror of the first waveWe’re playing a song for you,” Dr Luis Seija said softly, gazing at his patient. His voice, muffled by two masks and a face shield, fought to be heard above the noise of the hospital room. There were monitors beeping, alarms ringing, the hum of the negative-pressure machines.“We’re playing this for you,” Dr Seija told the patient, a Latina woman in her 60s. “So you can dance the night away.” He took her hand into his own, and he noticed, right away, how soft her skin felt. Continue reading...

Both babies survived after doctors performed emergency caesarean sections

President urges Americans to take ‘gigantically important’ step of getting vaccinated amid surging casesJoe Biden has expressed optimism that young children would soon become eligible for Covid-19 inoculations, while urging unvaccinated Americans to take the “gigantically important” step of getting their shots as the virus surges across the US.Speaking at a televised town hall in Cincinnati on Wednesday, hosted by CNN, Biden said that children under 12, who are currently ineligible for the three coronavirus vaccines available in the US, could get shots by August or later in the fall. Continue reading...

The pandemic, and the IOC’s stubbornness, have transformed the Games into a made-for-TV spectacle with a stale aftertasteOn arrival at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, passengers are greeted with a sign addressed to those “concerned with the Olympics”. It was a clumsy translation – “associated with” might have been more accurate – but it is all too apt. Those in Tokyo to compete in, report on or organise the 2020 Games are very much concerned. Concerned about what the next two weeks will bring, about the spread of Covid-19 in the athlete’s village and about the prospect that a ping on our phone could force us into 14 days’ isolation.Related: AOC boss John Coates orders Annastacia Palaszczuk to attend Olympic ceremony Continue reading...

Multiple challenges, as well as Covid self-isolation, result in only 14 of people being on board, it is believedA controversial Home Office deportation charter flight to Zimbabwe took off at about 10.30pm on Wednesday evening with only around one-third of the passengers on board that officials had hoped to remove.It is the first mass deportation flight to Zimbabwe for many years and marks the start of a planned ‘summer season’ of charter flight deportations to countries including Vietnam and Jamaica that the Home Office is planning in the coming weeks. Continue reading...

Number of Covid hospital admissions in England at highest level for nearly five months; Chile’s Institute of Public Health approves Russia’s Sputnik V jab

The industry’s first hijab-wearing model speaks about the ‘internal conflict’ that made her quit the catwalkHalima Aden, the Muslim model who became a trailblazer for wearing her hijab on the catwalk and in photoshoots, has hit out at the fashion industry and its exploitation of young models.Aden quit the industry in November 2020, citing compromised beliefs and feeling like a “minority within a minority”. Continue reading...

Blueprint for alternative arrangement published as sources say protocol was flawed at conceptionThe UK has launched an audacious bid to rewrite a key plank of the Brexit deal, saying the Northern Ireland protocol was flawed at conception but served its purpose to get the UK out of the EU as “one country”.The European Commission immediately ruled out a renegotiation of the deal, which was trumpeted by Boris Johnson as a solution to the Irish border impasse two years ago. The commission is understood to be open to some changes on the special arrangements for Northern Ireland, however. Continue reading...

Analysis: removal of world heritage status is a humiliating moment for Britain and the UK governmentThe threat has loomed over Liverpool for almost a decade. With every new building, crane and construction site that appeared on its historic waterfront, there was a growing inevitability that the city would be stripped of its prized world heritage status.Many believe the final nail in the coffin was the approval of Everton FC’s new £500m stadium at Bramley Moore-Dock. The 53,000-capacity venue will be built on derelict land that has been cut off from the city for 60 years, hemmed in by some of Britain’s most deprived streets. Continue reading...

Government subsidies were second-largest source of income for school in 2020, which declared a surplus of $8.31m and offered discounts to parentsA private boys’ school in Perth that charges up to $27,000 a year in fees received more than $7m in jobkeeper subsidies in 2020 while declaring an operating surplus of more than $8m.The Hale School in Perth counts cabinet minister Christian Porter and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith as alumni. Continue reading...

Turkey’s president told move to open up Varosha in northern Cyprus will clash with UN resolutionsTurkey’s pledge to resettle an abandoned Greek town in northern Cyprus has been universally condemned, with Washington joining the EU and UK in calling the move “unacceptable”.The criticism grew within hours of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, using the 47th anniversary of the Turkish invasion into Cyprus to unveil the plan, as he pushed for a two-state solution to the island’s division during a visit to Nicosia. Continue reading...

‘Highly sensitive’ data shows there were 39,017 care home deaths between April 2020 and end of March this year

Member of the House of Lords and Briton once detained in UAE among those appearing in databaseA member of the House of Lords is among more than 400 people whose UK mobile phone numbers appear in a leaked list of numbers identified by NSO Group’s client governments between 2017 and 2019, the Guardian can reveal.The principal government responsible for selecting the UK numbers appears to be the United Arab Emirates, according to analysis of the data. The UAE is one of 40 countries that had access to the NSO spyware that is able to hack into and secretly take control of a mobile phone. Continue reading...

President of federal disaster relief organisation says she does not expect to find any more survivorsAt least 155 people remain missing a week after record rainfall caused devastating floods in western Germany, as the president of the country’s disaster relief organisation said she “did not expect” rescuers to find any more survivors.“We are currently still searching for missed ones as we are clearing debris or pumping out cellars,” said Sabine Lackner of the federal agency for technical relief, a volunteering organisation belonging to the German ministry of the interior. Continue reading...

My friend Joachim Auerbach, who has died aged 93, was a refugee from Nazi Germany who built a full life from difficult circumstances. He continued to Morris dance well into his 80s and loved hill-walking.Joachim was born to Felix Auerbach, a lawyer, and his wife, Lisbeth (nee Adler) in Berlin. Theirs was an educated family of lawyers and rabbis. Continue reading...

Losing world heritage status has shone a light on the city’s redevelopment from maritime metropolis to pound-shop Shanghai, plagued by allegations of bribery and corruption

Closest aides and friends of emir’s ex-wife also began to appear on database as she moved to the UKAs her plane touched down in April 2019, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, who was accompanied by her two children, might have hoped she was beyond the reach of her ex-husband, the emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.Similarly, when he commenced custody proceedings in the high court of justice the following month, she might have imagined that the dispute would be settled in a courtroom, purely on the basis of its legal merits. Continue reading...

Trading arrangements continue to be a significant flashpoint in relations with Dublin and BrusselsJust seven months after it came into force, the Northern Ireland protocol is proving once again a significant flashpoint in the UK’s relations with Dublin and Brussels.On Wednesday, the UK published a “command paper” on the protocol. Some will see it as an attempt to tear up the agreement Boris Johnson struck in 2019, others will see it as a serious attempt to fix a deal they argue was flawed from the beginning but signed to help the British prime minister to get Brexit done, as he had promised. Continue reading...

Notes left on defaced Manchester mural will be removed to protect from rain, amid plans for digital exhibitionThousands of messages left on the mural of footballer Marcus Rashford in Manchester will be removed and preserved on Friday, to protect them from forecasted rain this weekend.A team of archivists and conservators will detach the tributes so they are preserved for future generations to mark the national moment of solidarity that followed the mural being defaced and a torrent of racist abuse was targeted at the player on social media, as well as England teammates Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho. Continue reading...

Government estimates between 3% and 12% of staff may resist getting jab – meaning they will lose their jobs

Colombian horror about a micro-cult is rather too fascinated by the barbarity of its leader, rather than the daughters he has hidden from the worldThis bold and disturbing arthouse horror from first-time feature director Juan Diego Escobar Alzate feels like it could be set sometime in the 19th century. It’s about a tiny religious cult based in the wildly beautiful Colombian mountains: the group’s leader is El Señor (Conrado Osorio), a farmer who looks like a cowboy in the Clint Eastwood mould, with a macho growl; his trio of daughters wear frontier prairie dresses. But we must be closer to the present day: in an early scene the eldest, 23-year-old Laila (Andrea Esquivel), brings him a 1980s cassette player that she has found in the woods and she is spellbound by this unknown contraption. El Señor says the devil lurks inside.It’s an intriguing set-up, and cinematographer Nicolás Caballero Arenas shoots the lush landscape through what looks like a trippy filter; blazing sunsets and garish rainbows give the film a quasi-fairytale, almost surreal feel. El Señor has raised his daughters in total ignorance of the world outside their community of a dozen or so. But the film is depressingly thin on the women; often it seems more interested in arranging them in arty tableaux than investigating the way that isolation has shaped their personalities and how they see the world. The wafty Terrence Malick-ish voiceover written for Laila doesn’t exactly fill in the psychological gaps. Continue reading...

Showing a health pass or negative PCR test is obligatory if people want to access cultural venues

Attacks by supporters of jailed former president ‘are bid for pardon or to unseat government’South African authorities fear a new wave of attacks aimed at undermining the economy, investment and the rule of law as networks loyal to former president Jacob Zuma seek to force his return to power.Investigators believe the unrest last week, which killed more than 200 and caused massive damage across a swath of the country, was deliberately provoked as part of a broader strategy by political opponents to force president Cyril Ramaphosa to pardon Zuma or even step down. Continue reading...

Pavel Durov, who built reputation on creating unhackable app, selected by NSO client governmentAmid the varied cast of people whose numbers appear on a list of individuals selected by NSO Group’s client governments, one name stands out as particularly ironic. Pavel Durov, the enigmatic Russian-born tech billionaire who has built his reputation on creating an unhackable messaging app, finds his own number on the list.Durov, 36, is the founder of Telegram, which claims to have more than half a billion users. Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging and users can also set up “channels” to disseminate information quickly to followers. It has found popularity among those keen to evade the snooping eyes of governments, whether they be criminals, terrorists or protesters battling authoritarian regimes. Continue reading...

Tory MP criticises home secretary over £55m deal with France to double number of patrols off its coastHanding £55m to French authorities to clamp down on migrants crossing the Channel in small boats is “throwing good money after bad”, the home secretary has been told by a Conservative colleague as she was grilled by MPs.Priti Patel revealed late on Tuesday that she had agreed to pay the sum as part of a deal with the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, to double the number of officers patrolling the French coast. Continue reading...

Prime minister announces referendum on ‘child protection’ three days before Budapest Pride marchHungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has announced that his government will hold a nationwide referendum on “child protection”, a euphemism for parts of a recent law widely condemned as discriminatory that bans any portrayal of LGBT people in materials meant for children.“LGBTQ activists visit kindergartens and schools and conduct sexual education classes. They want to do this here in Hungary as well,” said Orbán in a Facebook video statement placed on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The ‘it’s not a race’ vaccine mantra has been discarded, but the prime minister is still running around in circles trying to evade responsibility

The striking vocalist Brother Resistance, who died this month, started a politically powerful hybrid of hip-hop and soca that opened new possibilities in Caribbean musicYou would expect a song called Dancing Shoes to celebrate the unfettered joy of a good boogie, but Network Rapso Riddum Band’s 1981 track did quite the opposite. Lead vocalist Brother Resistance – whose death on 13 July sent shockwaves through the Caribbean music community – used Dancing Shoes to castigate his fellow Trinidadians for embracing foreign forms such as disco, delivering caustic lyrics in a flow laden with preacherly indignation.The song heralded the arrival of a new hybrid sound in Trinidad and Tobago – one that hasn’t had quite the global impact of dancehall, reggae or other Caribbean styles but which is the source of some of its most fascinating and political music, dubbed “rapso” for its melding of rap and soca. Continue reading...

UN body says years of development have caused ‘irreversible loss’ to historic value of Victorian docksLiverpool has been stripped of its coveted world heritage status after Unesco blamed years of development for an “irreversible loss” to the historic value of its Victorian docks.The UN’s heritage body concluded at a meeting in China on Wednesday that the “outstanding universal value” of Liverpool’s waterfront had been destroyed by new buildings, including Everton football club’s new £500m stadium. Continue reading...

In Netflix’s dating show, contestants dress as animals, insects, demons and dinosaurs – so they’re not chosen for their looks. The results are so screamingly awful, you’ll end up weeping into your sofaSometimes I think it makes sense as a covert government anti-Covid strategy (now that they’ve given up on overt, data-driven, scientifically sanctioned ones): give the public a new dating show in which people are done up as figures from a plushy fetishist’s (look it up, I don’t have time to explain everything) malarial dream. This will keep them spellbound with delight, or weeping silently into the sofa at the thought that the western civilisation we once hoped for is over. But, either way indoors, alone, spreading nary an airborne droplet to the young and vulnerable.I believe it to be a multi-pronged public health strategy. First they softened us up with last week’s Apocalypse Wow on ITV2, which left the nation staring bleakly past its television screens into an unknowable future that seemed suddenly not to brim with overwhelming possibility for humanity and its endeavours. Now there is Netflix’s Sexy Beasts, a reworking of a BBC show from 2014 with no other possible justification. What comes next, I cannot imagine. After a nugatory attempt, the mind quails and halts, unwilling to go further. Thus, do I fight to explain the advent of this monstrosity into our lives. Continue reading...

What does a 163% surge in demand for red hair dye tell us about the way Marvel’s latest, and star Scarlett Johansson, have been marketed and received?If you happen to see an unusually large number of women with red hair today, do not be alarmed. We haven’t been invaded by vikings again, nor is there a Nicola from Girls Aloud convention happening in your vicinity. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the sudden outbreak of redheads, and it is that Black Widow was recently released.According to the website Justmylook, there has been a 163% spike in demand for the colour since the release of Black Widow, presumably because lots of people sat through two hours and 14 minutes of a film about a woman grappling with the psychological torment of knowing she was part of a Soviet military programme that brainwashed, sterilised and murdered hundreds of abandoned girls, only to think: “Ooh, I bet I’d look lovely with her hair.” Continue reading...

Swiss court ruling is not the first time plunder of DRC’s mineral wealth has been linked to the killing of Congolese people. Without accountability, it won’t be the lastAccording to the Swiss federal criminal court last week, the corruption destroying the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where devastating conflicts over minerals used in our electronics have killed more than six million people – is inextricably linked to the UK, Gibraltar and Switzerland.It was a significant moment exposing corruption that has fuelled not only grinding poverty, famine and unemployment in DRC but also the impunity and violence required to sustain it. Yet, unless there is accountability, it won’t change. Continue reading...

Footage shows water filling carriages in Zhengzhou metro system, trapping people insideAs flood water swirled around their chests, passengers on the Zhengzhou metro carriage clung to the handrails and struggled to breathe in the diminishing space between them and the roof. Some felt faint, and one woman was heard calling family members to give them banking and other information in the apparent fear she might not see them again.Across Chinese digital and social media, horrifying stories have spread of people trapped in floods caused by what authorities said was a once-in-a-millennium rain event that hit the province of Henan, prompting the highest level of weather warning. Continue reading...

Councillor says many will be unable to vote due to Covid rules, with deadline for absentee ballots passedHundreds face being excluded from elections in the Isle of Man because of a lack of contingency plans for those self-isolating, it was claimed on the eve of polling.Elections are due to take place in a third of the Isle of Man’s local authorities on Thursday, having been postponed twice due to Covid-19 restrictions. Continue reading...

Italian government earmarks €5m to help villages get rid of volcanic cinders from erupting volcanoDozens of Sicilian towns face bankruptcy due to the cost of cleaning up the volcanic ash left by Mount Etna, which has been erupting regularly since February.The Italian government on Monday allocated €5m to compensate several villages struggling to pay to get rid of the volcanic cinders, the cost of which can reach more than €1m with every eruption. Continue reading...

Government team to investigate ‘policy changes’ on cyber exports following NSO revelations, according to Israeli mediaIsrael’s government is reportedly setting up a task force to manage the fallout from Pegasus project revelations about the use of spying tools sold to authoritarian governments by the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group.A team including representatives from the defence ministry, ministry of justice, foreign ministry, military intelligence and the Mossad, the national intelligence agency, is poised to conduct an investigation into whether “policy changes” are needed regarding sensitive cyber exports, several Israeli media outlets reported on Tuesday night, quoting unnamed officials. Continue reading...

PM’s office says CMO prefers only vaccinated reporters attend today’s press conference; New SA cases linked to potential super-spreader events; NSW records 110 local cases; Victoria records 22 local cases overnight

With a third of the state’s close contacts located outside Melbourne, anxiety is mounting over long testing lines, lack of surge workforce and limited vaccine supply

Police appeal for rider, who stopped and apologised to girl’s mother after incident, to come forwardA three-year-old girl has been left with “life-changing” injuries after being hit by a man riding an e-scooter in south London, police have said.The incident happened in Myatt’s Fields Park, Lambeth, at about 8.30pm on Monday. She had been in the park with her family when the collision happened, and was taken to a south London hospital by her relatives. Continue reading...

The figure compares with 24% in January and shows how the Delta variant has ripped through the nation of 1.3bn

Oxford University researchers urge people to reduce consumption by three-quarters or give it upEating processed meat raises the risk of heart disease by a fifth, according to the largest ever analysis of research into the impact of meat consumption on cardiac health.Researchers at the University of Oxford are urging the public to cut their red and processed meat consumption by three-quarters, or to give it up entirely, to lower their risk of dying from coronary heart disease. Continue reading...

The latest in our series of writers sticking up for maligned movies is a defence of the Arnie-free alien sequelPredator is a bona fide classic of science fiction. Predator 2 is, by most accounts, utter trash – one of countless sequels from the late 80s and early 90s that live in the shadow of their predecessor. Yet such is the way that the predator has been tarnished by almost every film that has come since, Predator 2 stands up as one of the creature’s best outings. Stephen Hopkins’s film stands up well to repeat viewings and is far less dumb than it first appears. It has its dumb moments but still has more brains behind the brawn than it receives credit for.Related: Hear me out: why Gnomeo & Juliet isn’t a bad movie Continue reading...

Across the UK, there are long waiting lists for a beach hut – and prices go up and up. A day on Hove promenade reveals why they are so popular and the problems that persist (mainly locks)Everyone who meets Bonny Holland says the same thing: she really loves beach huts. “Bonny posts in our Facebook group about four times a day,” says the Hove and Portslade councillor Robert Nemeth, who founded the Hove Beach Hut Association. “I have to approve the posts.”Inside Holland’s beach hut, the 62-year-old retired headteacher keeps a double-ring stove, a frying pan, a griddle pan, graffiti removal wipes, and, best of all, a loo. “You sit on this,” Holland says merrily, unfolding a portable toilet seat for my benefit, “and go in here.” Continue reading...

Both spend similar amounts of money but men use cars much more, Swedish analysis showsMen’s spending on goods causes 16% more climate-heating emissions than women’s, despite the sum of money being very similar, a study has found.The biggest difference was men’s spending on petrol and diesel for their cars. The gender differences in emissions have been little studied, the researchers said, and should be recognised in action to beat the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Judge criticises immigration department for being ‘missing in action’ and not investigating visa status of victimA woman who has shown no remorse, regret or sorrow for holding another woman captive as a slave for eight years in Melbourne has been sentenced to a jail term of the same length.Kumuthini Kannan was found to be more morally culpable than her husband, Kandasamy Kannan, who was described in court as being susceptible to a degree of domination by his wife and having a weak character. Continue reading...