Emmanuel Carrère’s drama – based on Florence Aubenas’s bestseller Le Quai de Ouistreham – fails to probe fully the injustices faced by low-paid workersNovelist and film-maker Emmanuel Carrère has contrived this earnestly intentioned but naive and supercilious drama about poverty and the gig economy, starring a tearful Juliette Binoche. It is adapted from the French non-fiction bestseller Le Quai de Ouistreham from 2010 by investigative journalist Florence Aubenas, published in the UK under the title The Night Cleaner.

The premier’s words hammered home the seriousness of the situation and the challenges for leaders trying to control coronavirusAt her press conference announcing 27 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, and a one-week extension of the Sydney lockdown, the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, told reporters it was “absolutely our intention” for restrictions to lift on 16 July.It was a revealing moment of honesty. For a government that has until now banked enormous community goodwill off its ability to handle new Covid outbreaks without subjecting NSW residents to the kind of restrictions that became the default response in other states, that word – intention – hammered home both the seriousness of the situation and the incredible challenges for political leaders trying to control this virus. Continue reading...

The star was a defining figure in post-independence Indian cinema and was one of the country’s first method actorsBollywood legend Dilip Kumar, who was a defining figure in post-independence Indian cinema, has died aged 98.Kumar had been taken to hospital in Mumbai last week suffering breathlessness, but died early Wednesday morning. “He passed away due to prolonged illness at 7.30am,” Dr Jalil Parkar of Mumbai’s Hinduja hospital said. Continue reading...

Poisoned bait, clandestine missions, top secret locations … we meet the directors of a film about the extraordinary Italians who forage for a delicacy that’s worth thousandsAnyone looking for an antidote to digital overload could do worse than spend 90 minutes in the company of some Piedmontese villagers as they root through leaf litter in search of their region’s own treasure: the white truffle. It’s this simplicity that makes new documentary The Truffle Hunters such a balm. With no voiceover, this mesmerically shot film follows a handful of foragers, and their dogs, as they scour the northern Italian forests during winter for the elusive fungus.“That’s why we made this film,” says co-director Gregory Kershaw. “To escape from our digital lives and spend time in a place like this. You realise how many things that are so important to human existence are missing from our daily lives. Like what it means to not think of nature as a wilderness to be explored, but to have it entwined with your daily life.” Continue reading...

Action follows Viktor Orbán passing law banning LGBT content in schools and mishandling of EU fundsUrsula von der Leyen is being urged to suspend EU funds to Hungary to force Viktor Orbán to address concerns over politicised courts and corruption.MEPs who work on the European parliament’s budgetary control committee are calling on the European Commission president to use a newly created EU law to freeze payments to Hungary for “grave breaches of the rule of law”. Continue reading...

There was certainly chemistry between us on our first meeting. But when we met for our first date, he had a big surprise …About five years ago, I had an unsolicited romance with a guy who was the exact opposite of what I’d been looking for.I was in the north of England to attend a weekend symposium with creatives from all over the world. After a five-hour train journey, I arrived at the hotel, ready to hide in my room with a cuppa in an undersized mug, when I was told that I was expected at an opening night dinner. I was ushered to the foyer of a grand ballroom where women in glittering gowns and men in sharp suits swanned around me. Not-so-fresh from my travels, I was still dressed in a beige cardigan and crummy trainers. Continue reading...

Hospitalised with an eating disorder as a teenager, she recovered to become a campaigner. Her mission? To show that eating disorders aren’t always visibleHope Virgo’s description of her descent into anorexia is so harrowing and filled with danger that meeting her in real life – in the south London flat she shares with her fiance – is like meeting the personification of triumph or optimism. “In the media, you see the same stories, the same distressed, emaciated person; you hear of people dying,” Virgo says. “We need to hear those stories, but at the same time, I really believe that a full recovery is possible. I think we lose sight of that glimmer of hope.”In her book Stand Tall Little Girl, she gives the figures to back this up: 40% of people who have had an eating disorder never think about it again; 15% are unable to fight it off and are stuck in it; and 45% of people find a way to live with it, using coping mechanisms. Virgo’s pioneering work has an overarching purpose: to say, in her words and through her actions, that recovery is possible. It’s a rescue mission launched from regular life into a world of crisis – in which no one is seen as irrecoverable. Continue reading...

A woman attempted to extinguish the torch’s flame in Japan with a squirt gun – and she’s far from the first to stage a protest during the torch relayAre you kind of, sort of, not really into the fact that the Olympics are still going to happen later this month in Tokyo despite the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that the vast majority of our planet’s 7.8 billion people remain unvaccinated, with alarming outbreaks cropping up worldwide?If so, you’ve got a friend in Kayoko Takahashi. Continue reading...

7 July 1821: News arrives of former emperor’s death on the British island of St Helena, on 5 May 1821Capt Crockat of the 20th regiment, arrived at the Admiralty on Wednesday, with dispatches from St Helena announcing this important event. The following are the particulars.Related: Napoleon Bonaparte dead at St Helena: archive, 28 July 1821 Continue reading...

From South Korea to Australia, authorities are struggling to contain the highly transmissible coronavirus strain that has caused a surge in UK, Europe and US

Country may place UK on no-fly list if cases explode, as PM says countries are making ‘different choices’ on deaths from coronavirusNew Zealand has dismissed suggestions it should follow in Britain’s footsteps to “live with” Covid-19, saying the level of death proposed by Boris Johnson would be “unacceptable”.If cases in Britain explode as a result of the lifted regulations, New Zealand may also consider putting the country on a no-fly list. Continue reading...

On Monday, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) announced the five finalists for the annual Public Library of the Year award, which honours newly built public libraries. Libraries are assessed according to how they combine functional architecture, information technology, and local culture. This year’s shortlisted institutions include libraries in Australia, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and China Continue reading...

Some women had coughs or a fever but were reportedly told ‘not to complain’Organisers pushed ahead with a Mexican beauty pageant in spite of a Covid-19 outbreak that infected almost half the contestants, it has emerged.At least 15 of the 32 contestants in the Miss Mexico 2021 pageant tested positive for coronavirus. A pageant staff member also tested positive, according to the Chihuahua state health secretariat. Continue reading...

Warning: graphic content Around 200 people told a royal commission they were abused by Dr Selwyn Leeks and others at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 1970s, allegations Leeks has deniedA New Zealand royal commission set up to investigate abuse in care says the country’s health ministry is still receiving complaints about a psychiatrist and others who allegedly tortured and abused patients at a hospital in the 1970s.Around 200 people have alleged they were abused as children by Dr Selywn Leeks in the adolescent wing of Lake Alice psychiatric hospital but police and medical authorities failed to curb his career or investigate sufficiently. Continue reading...

White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific says Beijing’s targeting of Australian exporters has only intensified Canberra’s ties with USOne of Joe Biden’s most senior advisers says China is trying to “cut Australia out of the herd” but the diplomatic freeze and targeting of Australian exporters is only driving Canberra to deepen its ties with Washington.Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, raised doubts about any imminent improvement in the relationship between China and Australia, saying he saw “a harshness” in Beijing’s approach “that appears unyielding”. Continue reading...

How does Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout and schedule compare with other countries, when will Australia be fully vaccinated and when will you be eligible to get your dose? We bring together the latest numbers on daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as stats and live data on total vaccination figures in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and other states

Samuel Ingham has faced intense scrutiny for his representation of Spears, who has said she’s been unable to choose her own lawyerBritney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer has asked to resign from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years.The news of lawyer Samuel D Ingham’s decision to step down comes after the singer’s emotional courtroom testimony prompted the resignation of her manager and the withdrawal of a wealth management firm involved in her conservatorship. The legal arrangement, which has been in place since 2008, has given Spears’s father and other parties intense authority over her career, finances, personal life and medical care. Continue reading...

Chinese president tells summit involving political parties of 160 nations that any country stopping another’s development must be opposedThe Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has urged political parties worldwide to oppose any country that engages in “technology blockades” – an allusion to the US, which views China as its strategic competitor.

London museum show to focus on the work of the continent’s designers over the past few decadesAn exhibition about African fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum will attempt to reframe the narrative about the continent, showcasing its independence and creativity following decades of false assumptions.Africa Fashion opens on 11 June 2022 and will feature 250 objects telling the story of the continent through the work of its most prominent and influential designers. Continue reading...

Department for Transport accused of underestimating the work needed to revive rail use after CovidRail travel in England risks losing out to cars in the recovery from Covid because the Department for Transport lacks urgency and does not “appreciate the scale of the challenge ahead”, MPs have warned.A critical report from the Commons public accounts committee said that taxpayers could also be left on the hook for large additional costs because new contracts had been awarded without sufficient transparency “to inform oversight”. Continue reading...

About 170 people, some wearing hazmat suits, were the first to fly to the Pacific island for a holiday with a Covid twistOn Tuesday afternoon in Taipei about 170 people, some dressed in hazmat suits and face shields, boarded a plane bound for the Pacific island of Guam.The sold-out flight was a package holiday with a Covid twist: dubbed “Air V&V” (vacation and vaccination), Guam is capitalising on its abundance of vaccines to revive its tourism industry, and Taiwan’s residents are the first customers. Continue reading...

Dutch police have detained three suspects after investigative reporter was shot in the streetDutch crime reporter Peter de Vries, known for his work in exposing the criminal underworld, has been shot and seriously wounded on a street in Amsterdam.Three suspects were detained, including the possible gunmen, police said, without providing details. Continue reading...

Greece reports 1,797 new daily cases more than twice the 801 cases reported on Monday; curbs on nightlife in Catalonia to reduce impact of virus on young

In the end, it all came down to one kick. One kick from Jorginho, for everything. Earlier misses by Dani Olmo and Álvaro Morata had put Italy in prime position to qualify for Sunday’s final against England or Denmark. With a calmness belying the enormity of the moment, Jorginho rolled the ball into the corner to conclude almost three hours of the highest tension, and break Spanish hearts.It was a semi-final that would have been a worthy final, a game that pulsed and throbbed like a human heart. Spain played probably their best game of the tournament; Italy managed to hold them at bay without ever quite hitting the heights of their earlier matches. Morata’s cool late finish, cancelling out Federico Chiesa’s goal on the hour, turned out to be only the start of the drama at a whooping, enthralled, drained Wembley. Continue reading...

Steven Gallant one of three men who restrained terrorist Usman Khan until armed police arrivedA prisoner who tackled the Fishmongers’ Hall attacker has been told he can be freed from jail.Steven Gallant was one of the three men who restrained Usman Khan during the terror attack in November 2019, in which he killed two people. Continue reading...

Driver and Marion Cotillard brim with nervous energy in this bizarre musical collaboration between Leos Carax and the Sparks brothers, which kicks off this year’s film festivalLeos Carax is the sly anarchist of French cinema whose sorties are sadly few and far between. Now he has broken cover with this barking mad fantasia, an almost entirely sung-through musical tragedy created with Ron and Russell Mael from Sparks, a band once thought to be relegated to YouTube clips of 70s Top of the Pops but now having a moment, thanks to this, together with a forthcoming documentary about them by Edgar Wright called The Sparks Brothers, and indeed their appearance in a Viz comic strip with the great socialist philosopher – Marx and Sparks.Related: Holy Motors: the weird world of Leos Carax Continue reading...

Military also accused of disappearing 24 people and presenting them as guerrilla fighters as part of false positives scandalA Colombian court has accused 10 members of the military and a civilian of forcibly disappearing 24 people and murdering at least 120 civilians and falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters who had been killed in combat.Related: The ‘false positives’ scandal that felled Colombia’s military hero Continue reading...

Protests mounted across Spain after 24-year-old nursing assistant Samuel Luiz died following attack outside nightclubSpanish police have arrested three people in connection with the killing of a young gay man whose death in a possible homophobic attack over the weekend shocked the country and sparked nationwide protests.Samuel Luiz, a 24-year-old nursing assistant, was out with friends in the Galician city of A Coruña in the early hours of Saturday when an argument started outside a nightclub. Continue reading...

Party doxxes satirical editor, suggesting followers demand he ‘takes responsibility when he leaves his office’Reporters without Borders (RSF) has criticised the far-right Spanish party Vox for suggesting that the head of an editorial group that publishes a satirical magazine that frequently lampoons the party be held to account for its content on the street outside his office.On Tuesday, Vox’s official Twitter account published the person’s name and photograph, and accused the magazine, El Jueves, of “spreading hate against millions of Spaniards on a daily basis”. Continue reading...

Daniel Ortega’s continuing crackdown targets farmer activists, student leader and potential presidential rivalNicaraguan police have arrested a half dozen more opposition figures, including the sixth presidential hopeful to have been detained in a crackdown that started last month.Among those arrested on Monday was Lesther Alemán, a former student leader who returned to Nicaragua after exile but stayed in safe houses. Those detained also included the presidential contender Medardo Mairena and Max Jerez, another student leader. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Experts investigating whether ‘environmental or engineering factors’ contributed to transmission, as pressure grows for purpose-built quarantine facilities

A landmark report by Human Rights Watch has detailed accounts of pro-democracy students and academics in Australia who are being harassed and threatened over their comments relating to China. In some cases, people have been doxxed, and others claim their actions have been reported to Chinese authorities. Reporter Daniel Hurst explains why academics and students are experiencing this harassment, and what Australia can do about itYou can also read: Continue reading...

Critics say government not doing enough to help neighbour as record cases deplete oxygen suppliesThe Australian government has been urged to rapidly step up its assistance to Indonesia, amid warnings the sharp rise in Covid-19 cases is fuelling an “escalating crisis right on our doorstep”.With aid groups fearing the Indonesian health system is on the verge of collapse, and with oxygen and bed shortages reported in some hospitals, there are growing calls for the Morrison government to help its most populous neighbour. Continue reading...

Mary Simon takes post at time of strained relations between Canada and First Nations after discoveries of unmarked gravesCanada will have its first ever Indigenous governor general after prime minister Justin Trudeau appointed Inuk leader Mary Simon as the Queen’s representative in Canada.Describing the move as a “historic” step, Trudeau announced Simon’s appointment on Tuesday after coming under mounting pressure to choose a new viceregal. His previous selection resigned after allegations of bullying in January. Continue reading...

Researchers hope to understand genius of artist by reconstructing his genealogical profileA study into the family history of the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci claims to have found 14 living relatives, the youngest aged one.The findings form part of a decades-long project, led by art historians Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato, aimed at reconstructing the genealogical profile of Da Vinci – who never married and had no children, but had at least 22 half-brothers – in order to better understand his genius. Continue reading...

First released in 1981, it is at the top of the iTunes chart this week, alongside many other very old albums and artists. Will our nostalgia loop ever end?Name: Queen’s Greatest Hits.Age: 40. Continue reading...

Mother of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman criticised slowness with which police reacted to concerns about women’s welfare

The director has spoken about race at the Cannes film festival, where he is the first black president of the Palme d’Or jurySpike Lee commented on the US’s current racial justice crisis in typically forthright fashion at the Cannes film festival on Tuesday, saying he hoped the time had come that “black people will stop being hunted down like animals”.Lee, who is the president of the jury that will pick the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, was speaking at the jury’s press conference on the first day of the festival. Having been asked a question about his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, which contains a scene in which a black youth, Radio Raheem, is killed by police, Lee responded: “I wrote it in 1988. When you see brother Eric Garner, when you see king George Floyd murdered, lynched, I think of Radio Raheem; and you would think and hope that 30 motherfucking years later, that black people stop being hunted down like animals.” Continue reading...

Mother recalls daughters’ lives in victim impact statement, describing evidence as ‘overwhelming’A teenager has been convicted of the murder of two sisters in a London park last year whom he stabbed to death after coming through a government “deradicalisation” programme.Danyal Hussein, 19, murdered Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46. He was said to have drawn up a “contract” in his own blood with a demon to sacrifice women in return for winning the lottery. Continue reading...

Vulnerable and immunocompromised people anxious about 19 July end to Covid rules

The Jamaican legend on the importance of Black Lives Matter, his 800m challenge and lessons of parenthoodThe fastest man in history is pondering just how much more destructive he could have been in the super spikes that have swung a wrecking ball at so many world records. Briefly, there is a battle between Usain Bolt the diplomat and Usain Bolt the competitor. The competitor wins. “Me and a friend were talking about this the other day,” he tells the Guardian. “And I was like, ‘should I be upset?’ Because I know over the years everyone has tried to make spikes different and better but …”Bolt stresses he is not worried about the current crop shredding his 100m world record of 9.58sec or his 200m best of 19.19sec. Yet he sounds uneasy about where the arms race in shoe technology will lead. “How can I argue if World Athletics decide that it’s legal? I can’t do anything about it. The rules are the rules. I don’t think I’ll be fully happy, but it’s just one of those things.” Continue reading...

Distraught parents have gathered outside a boarding school in north-western Nigeria after gunmen kidnapped 140 children, the latest in a wave of mass abductions targeting schoolchildren and students in the country. About 1,000 students and pupils have been abducted in Nigeria since December, with most eventually released after negotiations with local officials. Monday’s raid at the Bethel Baptist high school was at least the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state over the period

Proposed legislation also allows home secretary to impose extra fees for visa applicationsThe UK will block visas for overseas visitors if the home secretary believes they are refusing to cooperate in taking back rejected asylum seekers or offenders.In proposed legislation published on Tuesday, Priti Patel and future home secretaries would have the power to suspend or delay the processing of applications from countries that do no “cooperate with the UK government in relation to the removal from the United Kingdom of nationals of that country who require leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but do not have it”. Continue reading...

Activists call on Britain to acknowledge its role in efforts to erase Indigenous cultureThe United Kingdom is facing growing calls to re-examine the troubling legacy of its colonial history in Canada after the discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children.At least 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend such church-run schools as part of the campaign to strip them of their cultural identity, and amid anger over Catholic church’s role in operating the institutions, churches across the country have been set on fire. Continue reading...

Close contacts of people in England who have tested positive for Covid will not need to self-isolate if they have received both of their Covid jabs, or if they are under 18, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has told the Commons. People will still need to self-isolate if they test positive for the virus. 'This new approach means we can manage the virus in a way that's proportionate to the pandemic while maintaining the freedoms that are so important to us all,' Javid said.

28-year-old reported missing after failing to show for work at Tokyo school where she was last seen on 1 JulyPolice in Japan are searching for a British woman who has not been seen for almost a week, with her family describing her disappearance as “completely out of character”.Alice Hodgkinson, 28, was reported missing after she failed to turn up for work at an English conversation school in Tokyo. Continue reading...

He was able to exist so easily in my world that it helped me feel happier there tooIn the summer of 2015, I attended UK Black Pride (an annual event celebrating African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean-heritage LGBTQI+ people). It is one of the few places where I feel truly among family. My difference as a queer person of colour disappears in the sea of black and brown faces dancing in the sunshine – jumping around to the likes of Mark Morrison’s Return of the Mack and Jazzy Jeff’s Summertime; songs that also bring back memories of London in the 90s, the London of my teens.I come from a working-class, multicultural, east London community, but, after graduating from university, I also graduated to the middle classes. At UK Black Pride, I was reminded how far away I now felt from that world and, in that instant, recognised why love seemed to elude me. I dated men from my “circle”: men I’d met working as a lawyer or through university friends. Men who were middle class. Men who were often (but not always) white. Continue reading...

Political rivals and human rights campaigners criticise use of inflammatory campaign material by Vox partyHuman rights groups and politicians in Spain have spoken out after a court ruled that a controversial and false election poster for the far-right Vox party should not be withdrawn because it is legitimate political expression, and because the unaccompanied foreign minors it depicts in a relentlessly negative light are “an obvious social and political problem”.The poster, which Vox used as part of its campaign in May’s bitterly contested Madrid regional election, was put up in a busy rail station in the capital and shows a hooded and masked dark-skinned youth alongside a white Spanish grandmother. It incorrectly suggests that refugee and migrant children in state care receive 10 times more in benefits each month than the average Spanish grandmother does in pension payments. Continue reading...

Four men were jailed for up to 20 years after violent raid on monastery in 2019, says Human Rights WatchFour Tibetan monks were sentenced to up to 20 years jail in secret trials with no apparent evidence of criminal wrongdoing after a violent raid on a monastery in 2019, according to a report from Human Rights Watch, which calls for their release.The raid, details of which the rights organisation says have come to light for the first time, was sparked by police obtaining a phone, accidentally left at a cafe, containing WeChat messages to people in Nepal and evidence of a donation to an earthquake relief effort. Continue reading...