Figures on left accuse party of trying to keep Corbyn-endorsed candidate Anna Rothery off ballotLabour has been accused of a “stitch-up” after scrapping its all-female shortlist in the race for the next mayor of Liverpool, with one candidate threatening legal action if the decision is not reversed.The party reopened the selection for a mayoral candidate on Tuesday shortly before ballots were due to go to party members, with none of the existing candidates invited to apply. Continue reading...
News Corp-owned channel is garnering millions of views across digital platforms with a slew of far-right conspiraciesThe US conspiracy network Infowars has been banned from most social media platforms, but Alex Jones, its presenter, is still delivering his incendiary broadcasts on the internet, pumping out his message that the election of Joe Biden as president is part of a plot by globalists and the deep state to bring about “the takedown of America”.And that’s the mild version. Continue reading...
Transport for London says extension of lane rental scheme will boost walking and cyclingWorks that dig up pavements and disrupt pedestrians and cyclists in the capital will now be charged in the same way as roadworks that block traffic, under plans announced by Transport for London.The lane rental scheme will be extended to cover pavements from May as part of London’s push to encourage more walking and cycling journeys. Continue reading...
During school visit prime minister reveals doubts over ‘abusing or attacking people’Boris Johnson quit journalism for politics because he felt guilty about “abusing or attacking people” without putting himself in their shoes, he told a group of schoolchildren on Tuesday.“I was like a journalist for a long time, I still am really, I still write stuff,” he told pupils at Sedgehill Academy in south-east London. “But when you’re a journalist, it’s a great, great job, it’s a great profession, but the trouble is that you sometimes find yourself always abusing people or attacking people.” Continue reading...
Photographer Jill Mead has been capturing scenes on the streets of London during the latest lockdown – from the security staff guarding empty offices, to night-time boxers, a virtual carnival performer, influencers on Bond Street and a home hairdressing session Continue reading...
Galia Oz claims late author – hailed as Israel’s greatest – beat and humiliated her in childhood, but siblings say they remember him differentlyThe daughter of the late Israeli author Amos Oz has alleged that her father subjected her to “a routine of sadistic abuse” in a new memoir, claims that have been challenged by his family.Galia Oz, a children’s author, published her autobiography, Something Disguised as Love, in Hebrew on Sunday. “In my childhood, my father beat me, swore and humiliated me,” she writes, in a translation published by the newspaper Haaretz. “The violence was creative: He dragged me from inside the house and threw me outside. He called me trash. Not a passing loss of control and not a slap in the face here or there, but a routine of sadistic abuse. My crime was me myself, so the punishment had no end. He had a need to make sure I would break.” Continue reading...
Nika Melia of UNM charged with inciting violence at 2019 anti-government demonstrationsGeorgian police have stormed the country’s opposition party headquarters and arrested their leader, escalating a political crisis in the former Soviet country that government critics say risks a descent into authoritarianism.In a dramatic morning raid, riot police entered the headquarters of the United National Movement (UNM), using teargas and batons as they arrested its leader, Nika Melia, on criminal charges and detained at least a dozen others. Continue reading...
Simon Bowes-Lyon, the Earl of Strathmore, sentenced to 10 months over attack at Glamis CastleA relative of the Queen has been jailed for 10 months for sexually assaulting a woman at his ancestral home.Simon Bowes-Lyon, 34, the Earl of Strathmore, pleaded guilty to attacking a woman at Glamis Castle, in Angus, Scotland, in February last year. Continue reading...
Not everyone can – or wants to – look after their mental health by getting a sweat on. But there are plenty of other ways to give yourself a boostAs lockdown continues, exercise is often touted as one of the best ways to promote good mental health. But as good as running and cold swimming are if they work for you, they do not appeal to everyone. Nor are they an option if you are ill, injured or living with a disability. I am chronically ill and have been shielding for a year; my greatest exertion has been lifting Oreos from the packet to my mouth.I don’t want to brag, but I have not gone completely mad. When I spoke about this recently on Twitter, I received hundreds of messages from other disabled people who are finding their own ways to look after their mental health in lockdown (with very little physical effort). Here are some of our best tips. Continue reading...
President urged to act as rival gangs use death and intimidation in their brutal turf war for control of BuenaventuraClenching a fist, Tatiana Angulo talked about the killings of her neighbours’ two teenage sons.“They got mixed up in it,” said Angulo, 34, who runs a peace theatre group, reenacting the stories of local victims. “We used to be able to hang out and have a laugh on the street corners, but now that’s where the killings happen.” Continue reading...
By resurrecting disco, soft rock and 80s R&B, and bringing spectacle to the world of dance music, the French duo changed the course of pop music again and again
Four men have pleaded not guilty in a Queensland court to torturing and murdering the victims in 2016Two drug dealers begged for their lives and desperately tried to escape a locked toolbox before it was submerged in a lagoon, a Queensland court has heard.Four men have pleaded not guilty to the allegedly “breathtakingly evil” murders on the opening day of their supreme court trial in Brisbane. Continue reading...
The stars of stage and screen chat about playing witches, seeing ghosts and stepping into another legend’s shoesThey have enjoyed huge success on TV with The Undoing and Killing Eve, respectively, but Noma Dumezweni and Harriet Walter started out on stage. They met in 1999, when Dumezweni played a witch and understudied Walter as Lady Macbeth for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The pair caught up to discuss Dumezweni’s role as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, theatre ghosts and how Black Lives Matter is shaking up Broadway.Harriet Walter: Noma, we first met at your audition for Macbeth. I have a memory of you and me under a table in a Clapham rehearsal room, whispering some hocus-pocus, and deciding you were the one. Continue reading...
An ambitious and star-studded new Netflix series looks at the importance and legacy of an amendment that calls for equality and freedomChances are it is the most influential amendment to the US constitution that you aren’t familiar with. Given its impact, it is astonishing how little the 14th amendment is discussed in public life. Americans can’t rattle it off like the first and second amendments – but its words have fundamentally shaped the modern definition of US citizenship and the principles of equality and freedom entitled to those within the country’s borders.Sitting at the crux of these key ideals, the 14th amendment is cited in more litigation than any other, including some of the US supreme court’s most well-known cases: Plessy v Ferguson, Brown v Board of Education, Loving v Virginia, Roe v Wade, Bush v Gore, Obergefell v Hodges. And because these noble notions are embedded in the 14th, it has the remarkable ability to generate both boundless hope (for the promises of that more perfect union aspired to in the constitution’s preamble) and crushing misery (for the failures to achieve such promises). Continue reading...
UN calls for boat to be rescued, saying ‘immediate action’ needed to ‘prevent further tragedy’The United Nations refugee agency has called for the immediate rescue of a group of Rohingya refugees adrift in their boat in the Andaman Sea without food or water, many of them ill and suffering from extreme dehydration.The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said it did not know the exact location of the vessel and understood that some passengers had died. The boat had left southern Bangladesh about 10 days ago and experienced engine failure, it said. Continue reading...
Australian law allows victims who were assaulted overseas to claim compensation, but provision has never been usedA Cambodian victim of an Australian child sexual abuse offender has launched a claim for compensation through the Australian courts, in the first case of its kind.In January, 47-year-old Australian Geoffrey William Moyle pleaded guilty to 11 offences, eight of which related to the sexual abuse of children overseas aged between 10 and 12. The eight offences occurred in Cambodia between 2002 and 2005. Continue reading...
Joint US-Mexican citizen has also been charged with conspiring to help arrange her husband’s escape from prison in 2015Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexico’s most notorious cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been arrested in Virginia on drug trafficking charges.In a statement released on Monday, the US justice department said that Coronel, 31 – who is a joint US-Mexican citizen – was arrested at Dulles international airport and was scheduled to make her initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday via video conference. Continue reading...
Researchers estimate that for every person who dies of coronavirus, 8.9 close relatives are bereavedA tidal wave of grief resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic has now swept up 4 million Americans. The official loss of 500,000 people is hard enough to imagine. But for every death that the coronavirus has caused there is “bereavement multiplier” that gives some sense of the true scale of this tragedy.A recent study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) sought to measure the extent of the nation’s grief. Continue reading...
Tuesday: Brittany Higgins’ partner leaves job over fears of payback from government ministers. Plus: women do more unpaid work than men, quelle surprise!Good morning, it’s Tamara Howie here on Tuesday 23 February with the latest from the unfolding rape allegations at Parliament House and concerns from human rights agencies and Labor over visa laws. Continue reading...
Inscription on painting that has been subject of debate has been reattributed to the artist himselfIt is an image that has intrigued the art world for more than a century and become synonymous with existential angst, and recently inspired its own emoji, but now some graffiti has added a new layer to the story of Edvard Munch’s most iconic painting, The Scream.A tiny pencil inscription in the top left corner of one of the four versions of the painting, which reads, “Can only have been painted by a madman”, has been the subject of debate over who wrote it – it was originally thought to be by Munch, but was later attributed to a vandal – but new analysis by experts at the National Museum of Norway suggests it is indeed in the hand of the artist. Continue reading...
by Reporter in Yangon and Rebecca Ratcliffe on (#5EEVG)
Condemnation of military comes from around world as Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrestWitnesses have described the moment Myanmar’s security forces opened fire on protesters, killing two people, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Sunday in defiance of the military.A young man and a teenage boy are believed to have been killed in Mandalay on Saturday when police, supported by frontline troops, used live ammunition to break up crowds of protesters opposing the military coup. Continue reading...
Two 15-year-old boys charged with kidnapping after man reported car taken with his children insideTwo 15-year-old boys have been charged with kidnapping after an incident in which a car was stolen with the owner’s two young children still inside.West Midlands police said the pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have been remanded into custody, following charge, and are due to appear at Birmingham magistrates court on Monday. Continue reading...
Monday: Frontline healthcare workers, hotel quarantine staff and aged care and disability staff and residents in line for jab from today. Plus: inside the battle to restore Christchurch’s cathedralGood morning – Covid-19 vaccines have started in Australia, Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka won the Australian Open, and a group of Melbourne doctors are being investigated for promoting unproven Covid treatments. It’s Imogen Dewey with the news headlines on Monday 22 February.Australia’s long-awaited vaccine rollout began at a suburban medical clinic in Sydney yesterday, with a second world war survivor first in the queue. About 1.4m doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be rolled out for phase 1a of the federal government’s program, which includes frontline healthcare and quarantine workers, and aged care and disability home residents and staff. (Phase 1b, with about 14m doses, is much wider and won’t begin until later this year.) As Queensland and South Australia start their programs today, the latter’s leader is urging the public to ignore anti-vaccination “propaganda”. Mention of the vaccine sparked boos from the crowd last night at the tennis; in one presenter’s words, “just embarrassing”. Even so, the government is pulling paid ads for their major campaign to increase vaccine confidence off Facebook as they prepare to debate the mandatory news media bargaining code this week – opting instead for “other platforms and traditional media” to combat public health misinformation. Continue reading...
Police and demonstrators clashed again in Barcelona during demonstrations over the jailing of Pablo HasélPolice and demonstrators in Barcelona clashed for a fifth night on Saturday, with thousands taking to the streets across Spain to protest against the jailing of a controversial rapper for glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his music and on Twitter.Angry demonstrations first erupted on Tuesday after police detained Pablo Hasél, 32, and took him to jail to start serving a nine-month sentence in a highly contentious free speech case. Continue reading...
Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to make the 3,000-mile journey alone, relished the freedom of doing it all by herselfIt was always during the night when things went wrong for Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Like the time her boat hurtled into a huge wave at 19.2 knots and capsized, leaving her with a badly injured elbow.“I was basically thrown at a wall at 20-odd miles an hour. That’s going to hurt, especially in the middle of your sleep,” she said. “Everything happened when I was asleep.” Continue reading...
Tam Dean Burn says he and many other members of the union for actors and other creative workers have no confidence in the leadership of their Brexit-supporting general secretaryI write in the name of 140 Equity trade union members who support the letter sent to the prime minister (Stars including Sir Ian McKellen urge changes to visa rules for artists, 16 February). The post-Brexit situation we face working in Europe is disastrous, with a shift from no visa regulations across the EU to individual European states applying their own requirements, many of which will be impossible to meet.For example, filming in Budapest, one of the main film and TV locations, now requires a Hungarian residence permit for all work. The renegotiation demanded in the letter will not restore a Europe-wide solution. Continue reading...
Guardian analysis shows 7,578 people removed from the UK after 44,225 ‘intelligence-led’ raidsFewer than one in six of more than 44,000 “intelligence-led” Home Office immigration enforcement raids on people’s homes since the introduction of the “hostile environment” policy have resulted in deportations, according to data obtained by the Guardian.According to a freedom of information (FoI) response provided to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants by the Home Office, between 2015 and 2019 there were 44,225 raids on private homes resulting in just 7,578 people deported. There were also 190 raids carried out on care homes resulting in just 37 care workers removed from the UK. Continue reading...
Our pre-pandemic dog days are our destination once more unless we break sharply with the policies and political culture of the early 21st centuryAustralia’s economy performed poorly for most of its citizens in the seven years from the China resources boom to the pandemic. I call these years from 2013 to 2019 the dog days.Unemployment and underemployment remained stubbornly high – in the later years, well above the rates in developed countries that suffered greater damage from the 2008–09 global financial crisis. Wages stagnated. Productivity and output per person grew more slowly than in the United States, or Japan, or the developed world as a whole. Continue reading...
Ten years since an earthquake hit Christchurch in New Zealand and left 185 people dead, a major rebuild of the city's cathedral is under way. As part of the project, a drone survey from 2019 has revealed extensive damage to the historic structure, with rubble littered around the building and chairs still strewn across the floor. When the cathedral's tower fell it opened up the building to the elements, with thousands of pigeons since taking over the space, while water ingress has caused further damage. The cathedral's rebuild is expected to be completed in 2028 Continue reading...
The drug regulator says a group of doctors is being investigated for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus, against all scientific evidenceTrust the experts, we are told. Believe the science. But what happens when it is a group of eminent doctors who are behind the misinformation – and they back their claims with a superficially convincing bevy of peer-reviewed academic journal articles?These are the questions raised by the existence of the Covid Medical Network – a company run by three Melbourne doctors that has been promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 in defiance of the public health authorities, the World Health Organization and most expert medical opinion. Continue reading...
The creator of mad-scientist mega-hit animation Rick and Morty is aiming for a more upbeat take on humanity courtesy of the alien immigrants in his new show, Solar OppositesWhen discussing the current state of the world with the creator of Rick and Morty, you’re talking to someone who has given the various means by which an apocalypse might come about more thought than most. As the voice of both the titular mad scientist and his naive, tagalong grandson, Justin Roiland has participated in dozens of such scenarios, each more emotionally devastating than the last, from “Cronenberged” nuclear-war mutants to humanity being overrun by hyper-intelligent cyborg dogs.“The Earth needs a reprieve,” Roiland says. “We are in a sick system that’s designed to consume, and we’re tearing down the rainforest, and we’re polluting the oceans, and we’re doing all these things that are in service of a machine, the economy, all that stuff. Planned obsolescence, so stuff’s always breaking and you have to buy a new one, or there’s a new one that’s even better than the old one, so it’s ‘Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy!’ and ‘Make! Make! Make!’ And that’s just not sustainable in the long run for humanity.” Continue reading...
How will we tell the story of Covid-19 to future generations, capturing all the fear, horror and hope? Around the world, museums have begun to answer that questionMuseums all around the world are collecting Covid-related material. At one level, this is hardly surprising: this is a global transformative event and future generations will need to see what it did to us, how we tried to cope. But they should also be given praise for doing it at a time when they are all locked down. For most, the collecting process – usually an online callout for objects allied to more proactive spotting of themes and requesting of material – started in March or April last year at just the time museums were closing their doors and curators were taking to their laptops at home.
Boris Johnson should use upcoming G7 presidency to insist UK banks join debt suspension schemes, campaigners sayBoris Johnson should use his presidency of the G7 this year to insist that UK banks take part in the global push to alleviate a new developing country debt crisis, a campaign group has urged.The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) said there was a special responsibility on Britain to act, as it released new figures showing that London-based banks were the largest owners of debt issued by poor countries. Continue reading...
Mayor of Paris suburb labelled an extremist centre says stoking division will not help his townThe HairCoiffure salon on Rue Jean Jaurès, a short walk from Trappes station, is offering a cut-and-blow-dry for women at €18 (£15.50) and €15 for men, a banal observation at the centre of the latest battle in France’s toxic debate over religious extremism.Hairdressers and their clients hit the headlines after local teacher Didier Lemaire claimed there were no mixed salons in Trappes – suggesting the town was in the stranglehold of Islamic radicalisation. He also claimed schoolchildren were banned from singing and some women barred from cafes. Lemaire has since been placed under police protection following alleged death threats. Continue reading...
The man who helped revitalise New York with a linear park on a disused elevated railway hopes to do the same for the UK capitalNew York was revitalised by the High Line, a ribbon of parkland floating above Manhattan on a disused elevated railway that has become one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions.Now the High Line’s designer hopes to give London its own green thread, after being chosen to create the Camden Highline. Continue reading...
The city fears its discussion on slave owner Edward Colston is being dragged into a divisive national ‘culture war’A history commission set up by Bristol’s mayor after the toppling of the Edward Colston statue has urged ministers to stay out of debates on the future of dozens of city streets named after slave traders.Prof Tim Cole, the commission’s chair, said a new audit by Bristol city council had identified a handful of streets named after Colston, whose company enslaved at least 80,000 Africans, and dozens more streets named after other slave traders. “It should be up to people who live on those streets to decide – it is an uber-local issue,” he said. “If a bunch of people who live on Colston Avenue want to change the name of their street they should be empowered to do so.” Continue reading...
Kate Winslet on facing down misogyny in film, strange lockdown habits and the unexpected joys of fossil huntingA man is adjusting the angle of his laptop. “Hello!” he waves. Is that a dishwasher behind him? A little wooden knick-knack, painted with “Let’s Dance” in a jaunty font, balances on an Aga. I have landed in a cheery overlit garage, somewhere on the south coast. And then the nice man moves to the side and bloody hell there’s Kate Winslet. Movie-star Kate Winslet – “Hiya!” – in a smart black jacket with her hair tied back, and that famous smile where it looks like she’s trying not to laugh at a filthy joke.The man is her husband, Ned [Abel Smith, previously Ned Rocknroll] and the garage is their “little barn”. “It’s not actually a particularly nice little barn,” she says, her energy very much that of a kindly lady doing your bra fitting at Marks & Spencer – I like her immediately. “But over here, can you see the amazing sink? That’s from the set of Mildred Pierce. It’s got shit taps. But I do like to try to take a little something from my films. I took all the curtains from the cottage in The Holiday…” Her children, Mia (20, her daughter with her first husband Jim Threapleton), Joe (16, from her second marriage, to Sam Mendes) and Bear (born in 2013 soon after she married Ned) keep cutting them up, smaller and smaller: “To, like, upcycle their jeans. Also, I did a film called All the King’s Men where Jude Law and I had to do this snogging scene at a table, where we snog, snog, snogged our socks off. And it was so fabulous. As the scene was happening I kept thinking: ‘I’m going to have to buy this table.’ So I did!” Continue reading...
€47m building will feature a church, a mosque and a synagogue all linked to a central meeting spaceOn the site of a church torn down by East Germany’s communist rulers, a new place of worship is set to rise that will bring Christians, Jews and Muslims under one roof – and it has already been dubbed a “churmosquagogue”.The foundation stone of the House of One in Berlin will be laid at a ceremony on 27 May, marking the end of 10 years of planning and the beginning of an estimated four years of construction, and symbolising a new venture in interfaith cooperation and dialogue. The €47m building, designed by Berlin architects Kuehn Malvezzi, will incorporate a church, a mosque and a synagogue linked to a central meeting space. People of other faiths and denominations, and those of no faith, will be invited to events and discussions in the large hall. Continue reading...
Ultra-Orthodox community in north London told to keep socially distant after last year’s festivities led to huge spike in infectionsUltra-Orthodox rabbis in north London have issued unprecedented guidance on the eve of the Jewish festival of Purim in a bid to avoid a repeat of last year’s celebrations that led to a huge spike in Covid infections.The advice was issued by the Office of the Rabbinate of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in the form of a notice to be displayed in synagogues and shared on WhatsApp groups before the 24-hour festival, which starts at sundown on Thursday. Continue reading...
The psychologist’s fascinating study of friendship finds that the quality of our relationships determines our health, happiness and chance of a long lifeYou may not have heard of Robin Dunbar. But you will, perhaps, know of his work. Dunbar, now emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, is the man who first suggested that there may be a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom you can comfortably maintain stable social relationships – or, as Stephen Fry put it on the TV show QI, the number of people “you would not hesitate to go and sit with if you happened to see them at 3am in the departure lounge at Hong Kong airport”. Human beings, Dunbar found when he conducted his research in the 1990s, typically have 150 friends in general (people who know us on sight, and with whom we have a history), of whom just five can usually be described as intimate.Friendship, as Dunbar reveals, requires investment. It 'dies fast' when not maintained Continue reading...
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