Analysis of political donations over two decades reveals disturbing extent of ‘dark money’ given to all major partiesAlmost 40% of the money injected into Coalition parties in the past 20 years came from unidentified sources, new analysis shows.The Australian Electoral Commission’s recent release of donations data has reignited a debate about the country’s weak and opaque donation laws. An enduring problem is the presence of so-called “dark money” – or party income with an unidentified source. Continue reading...
It hasn’t been the easiest year for wedding planners, but despite the restrictions these four happy couples proved that where there’s a will there’s a wayWhen it became clear that their planned December wedding in a church in Cambridge was going to be at best Covid-complicated, they shifted into “How do we make this into a virtual wedding?” says Christine, who works for a tech nonprofit in the city. “We didn’t want people travelling; we couldn’t risk a super-spreader wedding. My parents are in South Korea, while Matthew’s parents work in global health in San Francisco, so there was no family drama. They all totally agreed with us.” Continue reading...
Ahead of London fashion week, the gender-fluid designer talks about glue guns, pop stars and courting controversy in VogueBefore anyone had heard of the designer Harris Reed, they had seen his suit in Vogue. Or was it a dress?A tailored suit with peak shoulders attached to a hoop-skirt draped in tulle and hot pink satin garlands, it was worn in the magazine’s December issue not by a Hollywood starlet, but by a popstar: Harry Styles. Arguably, it was both. Continue reading...
As she prepares to leave office, children’s tsar Anne Longfield says families should be at the heart of MPs’ plansParents have had to become teachers, a footballer has helped expose the plight of deprived families, and local groups across the country have been on the frontline in providing emergency advice and supplies. As a result, the pandemic’s extraordinary impact has helped shift Britain’s attitude to a community’s role in bringing up children, the children’s commissioner for England has said.Talking to the Observer before she leaves the role at the end of the month, Anne Longfield said that when she took up the job in 2015, the care of children was regarded as “a bit like pets – you wanted one, they’re yours”. Continue reading...
In the singer-songwriter’s simplistic directorial debut, a cartoonish portrayal of autism clashes with a tale of addictionFor many years, Australian pop star Sia has hidden behind a fringe that covers her eyes. Using actors instead of starring in her own music videos, she has preferred not to centre herself. Yet her directorial debut appears to draw from her own experiences with addiction; its protagonist Zu (a near-bald Kate Hudson) is a recovering alcoholic. This is confusing, given that the film’s title refers to her non-speaking, neurodivergent younger sister Music (Maddie Ziegler), whose main purpose is to absolve Zu from her troubled past.Ziegler, who appeared on the reality TV show Dance Moms, and features in some of Sia’s best-known videos (including Chandelier and Elastic Heart), is not herself on the autistic spectrum. It’s a problem, especially given the cartoonishness of her portrayal, which sees her gurning, grimacing and mumbling through her scenes. Music uses an augmentative and alternative communication device to translate rudimentary expressions such as “I am happy” and “I am sad”. Her interior world is just as simplistic, conveyed via goofy musical interludes rendered in childlike primary colours and abstract shapes. The lyrics, jaunty platitudes about Music’s “magic mind” and failing body, are offensive too. These self-consciously upbeat moments clash horribly with the wider redemption narrative. Continue reading...
Ancient Egyptian site in Abydos apparently dates back to beginning of the first dynastic periodAmerican and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent archaeological sites of ancient Egypt, a top antiquities official said on Wednesday.Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 450km (280 miles) south of Cairo. Continue reading...
Tunisian navy had to end rescue effort early due to bad weather but pulled one body from the waterOne migrant is dead and 22 others are missing after their boat sank in the Mediterranean sea off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the Tunisian navy has said.Bad weather interrupted rescue operations around 100 km (62 miles) north-west of Lampedusa, the navy said on Saturday, adding that the body of one migrant had been pulled from the water, while 22 were missing. Continue reading...
At least 60 injured in explosions at Islam Qala crossing that consumed 500 natural gas and fuel trucksA fuel tanker exploded on Saturday at the Islam Qala crossing in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on the Iranian border, injuring at least 60 people and causing a massive fire that consumed more than 500 trucks carrying natural gas and fuel, according to Afghan officials and Iranian state media.Two explosions at the border crossing were powerful enough to be spotted from space by Nasa satellites. One blast erupted around 1.10pm Afghan time (8.40am GMT), the next around a half hour later at 1.42pm local (9.12am GMT). Continue reading...
I followed the singer’s ups and downs since her first hit as a 16-year-old. Now a new documentary has highlighted how harshly she has been treatedThe first time I interviewed Britney Spears she was 16: an instant, overnight superstar on account of her just-dropped single ... Baby One More Time. This was 1998 so I asked her about the other biggest story of the day – the affair between Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky.“I just think the president is a very decent man,” she began in her honeyed drawl, “and it’s really not fair what all these people are saying about him and that gir–” Continue reading...
The Labour leader is being urged to hold Boris Johnson to account for the damage being caused by his flawed trade deal with the EULabour leader Keir Starmer is coming under growing pressure from senior party figures and activists to hold Boris Johnson to account over the disastrous effects of his Brexit deal on many UK businesses.After more than six weeks of virtual radio silence on Brexit, the Labour leader has yet to make a sustained challenge of any sort to the prime minister on the issue. This is despite hauliers reporting massive falls in trade volumes to the EU and half of 470 UK exporters telling the British Chambers of Commerce in a survey that they are facing real problems. Continue reading...
Billed as a celebration of humankind’s victory over coronavirus, Games could fall foul of pandemic for a second timeThe Olympic rings have been spruced up and are once again overlooking Tokyo Bay. Countdown clocks have been reset, telling passersby there are just 171 days to go until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games begin.They are supposed to build excitement in the host city and among sports fans around the world. But Japan’s Olympic dream is quickly turning sour in the face of the worst global health crisis for a century. Continue reading...
It was coming up to Christmas and I asked my grown daughter what she wanted. She said, ‘What I want for you is to find love again’It was something that hadn’t crossed my mind to want for myself. I was 65 and amicably separated from her father. Our marriage had lost its mojo long before; there had been struggle and frustration, and she had witnessed that.I replied, “Darling, I’ve got a great life! I travel, I do interesting work, I’ve got great friends, I’m content.” She said, “No, I want you to love again.” It turned out that she’d spoken to my friends who’d known me for decades, and they had told her what I was like in my 20s: that I was an incredible flirt, that I was vivacious, that I was confident around men. She said, “I haven’t seen that part of you.” Continue reading...
Vehicle with passengers spotted floating along river at Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire on 1 FebruaryThe bodies of a man and a woman have been recovered from a submerged car after a large search operation on the River Trent in Nottinghamshire.Police dive teams located an object believed to be a vehicle on 2 February, a day after a car with two passengers was reported to have been seen floating along the river at Hoveringham, between Newark and Nottingham. Continue reading...
Paint thrown and bangs heard after Bangkok’s Democracy Monument draped in red clothYouth activists protesting against laws forbidding insult to Thailand’s powerful king briefly clashed with police on Saturday after draping Bangkok’s Democracy Monument in red cloth.Protesters threw paint at police and several small bangs were heard during a standoff near a city shrine after the demonstration had moved from Democracy Monument and the main leaders had called for it to disperse. Continue reading...
Five years ago, Swedish designer and stylist Linda Ring experienced total burnout. After a few months doing nothing, she tried to adopt a slower lifestyle. “I started baking sourdough, but as it’s my nature to try to make everything beautiful, I began experimenting.”Ring’s loaves became canvases for portraits and landscapes, scored into the raw dough. “You never know how the bread or the pattern will turn out, it’s enormously satisfying when I take it out of the oven and see.” Continue reading...
A failure to account for previous violence has led to at least 20 unsafe murder convictions, campaigners claimIt was a specific moment in which she thought she might die that drove Stella to the brink. “He had strangled me at the bottom of the stairs and that frightened me because you can get punched in the face or your hand broken, but I had never lost my breath before,” she recalled.For Nicole, she was “pushed over the edge” when violence by her partner triggered a post-traumatic response to historic abuse by other men. “I was getting flashbacks of abuse ... everything came to a head and I just lost it.” Continue reading...
Seven activists at the first and longest-running protest camp against the controversial HS2 high-speed rail development were evicted in the early hours of Saturday morning.Video footage shows the protesters being forcibly removed, with one man being pinned to the ground by dozens of black-clad members of the National Eviction Team (NET) supported by police officers. The camp, at Harvil Road in the Colne Valley, Hillingdon, 25 miles west of the Euston tunnel protest against HS2 – which has now entered its 17th day – was set up three and a half years ago
Tributes pour in for drummer credited with transforming role from metronome to musicianThe pioneering free jazz drummer Milford Graves, who was credited with transforming the role from metronome to musician, has died aged 79, NPR has confirmed. The cause of death was congestive heart failure.Musicians including Vijay Iyer, Superchunk, Oren Ambarchi, Moor Mother, Clipping and Ryley Walker paid tribute to Graves. Jazz critic Nate Chinen said he was “a creative galaxy in human form. Unfolding possibility in every molecule.” Continue reading...
Met Office records coldest UK temperature for 65 years in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, at -23CMore snow is expected in parts of the UK this weekend after a record-breaking week of cold weather, according to the Met Office.The UK recorded its coldest temperature for 65 years in Braemar in Aberdeenshire on Wednesday night, when the mercury dropped to -23C. In Scotland, and parts of Wales, Northern Ireland, and northern England, yellow weather warnings are in place for snow and ice on Saturday and Sunday. Continue reading...
by Stephen Burgen in Barcelona & Sam Jones in Mad on (#5E4W9)
In today’s election, public services are a huge concern for the people as politicians debate independenceMuch has changed in Poblenou over the past four years – not least the arrival of a pandemic that has devastated tourism and employment – but the people of the traditional working-class barrio in the north of Barcelona are struggling with a nagging sense of deja vu over Sunday’s regional election.“All the talk is about independence but what most of us want from politicians is to solve social problems,” says Nuria Vallejo, a doctor working in the public sector who has lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years. “Number one is the health crisis, and then there’s the education system and questions of sustainability.” Continue reading...
From Wentworth’s letter in Persuasion, to a bedside proposal in Tales of the City, authors share their favourite scenes of love and intimacyChosen by Kathy Lette, author of 14 comically romantic novels including HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy Continue reading...
The bestselling novel was initially inspired by Nicholls studying Tess of the D’Urbervilles as a teenager – but he didn’t begin writing about Emma and Dexter for another 20 yearsSometime in the mid-80s I was studying Tess of the D’Urbervilles for A-level. Seventeen was the optimum age for doomed romance, and still recall reading the passage in which Tess “noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year” and realised that, as well as a birthday, there was “a day which lay sly and unseen … that of her own death … giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it”. Hidden anniversaries! Days we pass through without knowing their significance! Perhaps I said “wow”. Certainly the notion seemed profound enough for me to talk about it at parties. I did well in the exam, less well at parties.Twenty-two years later, I was struggling to find an idea for my third novel. A new parent approaching 40, I was predictably preoccupied with the question, how did we get from there to here? How do we become our adult selves, what changes and what stays the same? I thought I might write an epic love story on the theme, but 20 years of biography seemed unwieldy and intimidating. Besides, I was distracted by a dream screenwriting job, adapting Tess of the D’Urbervilles for the BBC. There it was again; that ordinary day that turns out not to be ordinary at all. Twenty set-piece scenes seemed far more manageable and by leaving out the obvious events – the first encounter, first kiss, the wedding days – perhaps the reader might be pulled forward, filling in the other 364 days as they went along. Continue reading...
Woman and man from Barrow arrested after death of one-year-old placed with themA man and woman have been arrested on suspicion of murder after the death of a one-year-old boy they were going to adopt.The child was placed with his adoptive parents at the time of his death, but a final adoption order had not yet been granted by the court. Continue reading...
Mitsuko left Japan in 1960 for a new life in North Korea. Once there, she realised she – and hundreds of others like her – could never go backIt has been six decades since Mitsuko Minakawa boarded a ferry on the Sea of Japan coast, bound for a new life in North Korea. But the anguish of that sunny day in the spring of 1960 has never left her.Two months earlier, Minakawa had married a Korean man, Choe Hwa-jae, a contemporary at Hokkaido University, where she was the only woman in a class of 100 students. Minakawa, then 21, and Choe were part of the mass repatriation of ethnic Korean residents of Japan – many of them the offspring of people who had been brought from the Korean peninsula by their Japanese colonisers to work in mines and factories. Continue reading...
Fighting over lockdown rules, clashing about coronavirus lies, or just stuck on endless boring Zoom calls: will your mates still be your mates after the pandemic?Ellen Page, an 18-year-old university student from Northampton, was hospitalised with Covid last June. “I have never felt weaker,” she says. “I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow. I had hot sweats. It was really scary.” During the four days she was in hospital, she took comfort in messages from childhood friends. “They were all texting me, saying, ‘We hope you get better, we wish we could see you.’”Months later, these same friends began flouting lockdown rules. “It started with a few of them posting anti-lockdown tweets, saying that it was fine [to break the rules], because only a small percentage of people were dying.” Still drained from being ill, she focused instead on her studies. But then Christmas rolled around and, while most of the country was under tier 4 restrictions, Page saw her friends throwing parties and posting pictures of them on social media. “They were all gathered at their family houses, with three households together. Then in the evening, new people arrived. It was like there was no pandemic.” Continue reading...
During the Trump era, the group enjoyed presidential support and recruited thousands – but their role in the Capitol attack has led to new chargesDuring the the Trump era, the far-right Proud Boys rode high, enjoying presidential support, recruiting thousands of men, and, as the self-nominated nemesis of leftist Antifa activists, participating in a string of violent street altercations around the country.But now since Trump’s election loss and the aftermath of the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC, a series of blows dealt by law enforcement, elected officials and their own leaders have shaken the extremist fraternity that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a hate group. Continue reading...
Dishes that take a long time but don’t require much of yours: lime-leaf-cured ‘gravadlax’, pulled lamb with orange and spices, and saffron and cardamom brioche cakeTime is doing two things at the moment, I find. On the one hand, we have much more of it: the time saved by not commuting, say, and by not going out; in fact, not doing anything at all, really. On the other hand, I often get to the end of a day at home and wonder where it’s gone. Beyond going through the motions of family life – cook, eat, teach, star jumps. Cook, eat, teach, star jumps. On repeat – I’m almost impressed by how little else I achieve. The way to deal with this contradiction, in the kitchen at least, is to embrace slow-cooking: things that take a long time to cook, but don’t require much of yours to do so. Continue reading...
Man arrested after taxiing plane was halted just before it was due to take off for BucharestPolice halted a taxiing plane just before it was due to take off from Heathrow to arrest a man on suspicion of child abduction.Nottinghamshire police said it received a report of a man taking a four-year-old without his mother’s permission at 4.57pm on Thursday. Continue reading...
The epicentre of Europe’s share trading has shifted to Amsterdam – this is a problem for London that is only going to growThe past year of all our lives has been defined by people failing to understand exponential processes. It’s slightly worrying, then, to hear financial professionals in London saying the amount of business that’s shifted to European financial centres since Brexit is not that big. Nearly everything is small to begin with. The trouble is that things grow.In itself, as William Wright from the New Financial thinktank says, the fact that Amsterdam has overtaken London in terms of equity trading volume is unlikely to make much difference to anyone’s profit and loss account (or a country’s tax-take). Measuring trading volume is in any case something of an abstract concept, which these days depends more on the way in which computer algorithms split up orders to get the best price, than the actual amount of business. The commission on equity trading is incredibly low and the exchange fees even lower. Continue reading...
The tabloids dubbed her the ‘honeytrap’ girl when she was tried for the murder of Gagandip Singh in 2012, alongside two others. Was the truth more complicated?Mundill Mahil knows it sounds cheesy, but as a girl she wanted to save the world. She was a model student. At Rochester grammar school, she got 10 A*sat GCSE, three As at A-level, mentored an autistic child and worked in a hospice, before winning a place at Brighton and Sussex Medical School; she hoped to do aid work for Médecins Sans Frontières when she qualified. Then everything went wrong; at 19, she was charged with murder.There are no winners in this story. One young man died; one was convicted of murder, another of manslaughter. On 25 February 2011, 21-year-old Gagandip Singh was brutally beaten by two men in Mahil’s Brighton bedroom, before being burned to death in the boot of a Mercedes. A year later, an Old Bailey jury acquitted Mahil of murder, but found her guilty of GBH with intent, for having lured Singh to his death. She was given a six-year sentence. Her motive, prosecutors argued, was revenge; she had told friends Singh had assaulted her six months earlier. Continue reading...
The author’s new thriller revolves around a deadly neurotoxin. He talks about its parallels with the poisoning of Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny - and why today’s protests in his homeland give him hope
by Karina Longworth, George the Poet, Clara Amfo, Kai on (#5E4JP)
Looking for a new audio series to burn through? The biggest names in audio reveal their overlooked gemsWynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh and Karen Tongson’s podcast Waiting to X-hale is a queer/WOC analysis of Generation X. But as a late-Xer I love it for more than just nostalgic reasons: Mitchell-Rohrbaugh is a veteran of celebrity magazines, and Tongson is an academic who chairs the Gender & Sexuality Studies department at USC, and the vibe of their show perfectly splits the difference between guilty-pleasure fun and rigorous intellectual debate. Whether they’re interviewing their parents about the experience of watching the new Bee Gees documentary, or recalling the era when “the dark web was the front web”, they’re doing really valuable cultural history in an addictive, chatty, inclusive way that I don’t think any other podcast is doing. Continue reading...
A perfect winter warmer – you might never make ragu with minced meat againThe inspiration for this recipe came from Josie, who was the law school secretary when I was at university. She shared with me the secret of her Italian family’s slow-cooked steak ragu with mashed broccoli and garlic, and I haven’t made a ragu with minced meat ever since. The addition of guinea peppers gives the stew a certain lift and a Ghanaian twist. This is a low and slow cook, but it’s well worth the wait – a perfect winter warmer. Continue reading...
You’re not moving methodically through your muscle groups: you’re trying to find your inner demonRockFit was a word-of-mouth suggestion, by way of social media. Launched and extremely popular in Plymouth, it probably would have stayed there were it not for the massive boost that online classes have had over lockdown. Now it seems to have a lot of fans. Or maybe, in the great echo chamber of modern life, the kind of people I like love it.The “rock” is exactly what you’d expect: every band that sounds like a German compound noun for banging your head on purpose (Rammstein, Halestorm); everything you’d have heard on Kerrang!’s drivetime in the good old days (Bon Jovi, Faith No More); everything that sounds as if, somehow, it’s going to hurt (Queens of the Stone Age, Nine Inch Nails). The “fit” element is way more left field and won’t remind you of anything you’ve done before. Continue reading...
Demonstrators called on the military to ‘stop kidnapping at night’ as the military continues to detain officials and activistsOpponents of Myanmar‘s military coup have sustained mass protests for an eighth straight day as continuing arrests of junta critics added to anger over the detention of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.Thousands assembled in the business hub, Yangon, on Saturday while protesters took to the streets of the capital Naypyitaw, the second city Mandalay and other towns a day after the biggest protests so far in the south-east Asian country. Continue reading...
As long as I don’t tell them about it, it needn’t be a successIt is early morning and I am sitting in the kitchen before anyone else has had a chance to use it, drinking coffee, reading headlines and being quiet. The only sound is the noise of the tortoise trying to force himself through the cat flap, and the cat itself, which is sitting on the worktop, wanting cat food and getting none.“Noel,” it says. Continue reading...
Victorian premier Dan Andrews has announced a snap five-day lockdown in response to the Melbourne hotel Covid outbreak. For what reasons can you leave home? Is mask-wearing compulsory? Is travelling permitted? Untangle the rules with our guide
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