Barry Jay, the co-founder of the gym chain, on turning his back on the fitness industry to make films – and why his own traumatic childhood is the source of his gruesome inspirationIn 1998, Barry Jay co-founded a gym called Barry’s Bootcamp in West Hollywood. It went well. There are now 70 Barry’s across 14 countries. But two years ago, aged 55, he retired to make horror films.“There was an attraction to that feeling of chills running down my spine,” he says. “Of seeing people in peril.” Therapists have credited this to his traumatic childhood. “I lived in a lot of fear growing up. I was under height, underweight, quite a target at school and in the neighbourhood.” Continue reading...
Hosts have dabbled in conspiracy theories and aggressively attacked the Joe Biden administration as network’s ratings dropFor two decades, Fox News has reigned supreme as America’s number one cable news channel. Until January, that is, when the network dropped to a once unthinkable third place in the ratings.The response from Fox News has not been a period of sombre self-reflection. Instead, the network seems to have made a chaotic lunge towards the right wing in recent weeks as hosts have dabbled in conspiracy theories and aggressively attacked the Joe Biden administration. Continue reading...
Lucrative live shellfish trade also hit hard, with consultation over further restrictions on live animal exports ending soonLivestock and live shellfish exports from the UK to mainland Europe are at a standstill as producers struggle with post-Brexit transport conditions.
The personality of France’s second city shines through its crime fiction, urban photography, rap and TV drama. Grab an apéro and enjoyIt’s impossible to be ambivalent about Marseille. Those of us who call the city home – native and adopted Marseillais – know that for some first-time visitors, it’s a place that doesn’t reveal its considerable charms as easily as other corners of southern France. Many bypass the boisterous Mediterranean port on their way to sleepy Provençal villages or the Côte d’Azur. They don’t know what they’re missing.Marseille’s Phocaean founders dropped anchor in its natural harbour around 600BC. France’s oldest city has been shaped by millennia of migration since – from the Romans to Corsicans and Algerians, Spanish, Armenians, Comorans and Vietnamese – and the fiercely proud Cité Phocéenne, as some still refer to it, moves to its own distinctive rhythm. Culinary historian Emmanuel Perrodin is fond of repeating a local saying: “First you have the sea, then the city, and beyond that is another country called France’.” Continue reading...
Animation features an owl teaching young children about the need for the controversial law in crackdown on educationHong Kong students as young as six will be taught about the national security law under a dramatic overhaul of the education curriculum.Notices sent out on Thursday require schools to prevent participation in political activities, increase monitoring of employees and teaching materials, remove books and flyers deemed to endanger national security, and to report to authorities if necessary. Continue reading...
The prime minister says Australia will increase the number of international arrivals after national cabinet agreed to raise the limits in certain states. Almost 40,000 Australians registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as wanting to return remain overseas, with arrival caps and limited flights restricting their opportunities. From 15 February the number of arrivals in New South Wales and Queensland will return to previous levels while South Australia and Victoria will also increase their numbers
Indonesian men, women and children are risking their health wearing metallic paint to earn money as the economic impact of coronavirus worsensIt was 8pm on one of the busiest intersections in western Jakarta. Three men in metallic paint from head to toe stood on the footpath. Each was holding a silver can.Alfan, 25, was one. When the light turned red, he walked in silence, barefoot, and stood in front of the stopped traffic. He bowed deeply for a few seconds and then struck a pose like a statue: standing straight, he raised his right hand to his temple and gave a salute in silence for about a minute without blinking. Continue reading...
Colonisation has had a particular effect on Indigenous wahine that disadvantages them to this dayThe Mana Wahine Kaupapa Inquiry hearings will begin this week, investigating claims regarding the specific tiriti violations of the crown that have led to injustice against wahine Māori across social, physical, spiritual, economic, political and cultural dimensions.It has been a long time coming, having first been filed in 1993 and led out by the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and then initiated as an inquiry in 2018. While it can be said that all Waitangi inquiry hearings are traumatic, frustrating and difficult, it’s expected that this one in particular will reveal a history that is as foundational, on a national scale, as it is disturbing. Continue reading...
Analysis of 2019-20 financial returns shows Nationals banked just five large donations over the periodBarnaby Joyce says there is a “dangerous” downward trend in the Nationals’ political donations, warning his colleagues “you’re not going to be able to run a political party on lamington drives”.The former Nationals leader made the comments in response to a Guardian Australia analysis of the 2019-20 financial returns, showing across its state and federal branches the junior Coalition partner banked just five large donations. Continue reading...
by Bernadette Carreon in Koror and Ben Doherty Pacifi on (#5DS80)
Exclusive: Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru question whether to remain members amid bullying claimsLeaders of Micronesian countries are contemplating abandoning the Pacific Islands Forum altogether, after a fractious vote for a new secretary general sidelined the north Pacific countries, who say they are bullied by larger nations, and left with “crumbs”.The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the Pacific region’s most important political body and a powerful voice for the Pacific on the global stage, but the election of former Cook Islands prime minister Henry Puna as secretary general has exposed a deep fracture between north and south Pacific nations. Continue reading...
by Julian Borger in Washington and Patrick Wintour Di on (#5DRQB)
Biden said ‘this war has to end’ in state department speech outlining overhaul of Trump’s foreign policiesJoe Biden has announced an end to US support for Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen, as part of a broad reshaping of American foreign policy.In his first foreign policy speech as president, Biden signaled that the US would no longer be an unquestioning ally to the Gulf monarchies, announced a more than eightfold increase in the number of refugees the country would accept, and declared that the days of a US president “rolling over” for Vladimir Putin were over. Continue reading...
Six-week-old suffered cardiac arrest during ceremony, which involves three immersions in holy waterThe Orthodox Church in Romania is facing growing pressure to change baptism rituals after a baby died following a ceremony which involves immersing infants three times in holy water.The six-week-old suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital on Monday but he died a few hours later, the autopsy revealing liquid in his lungs. Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation against the priest in the north-eastern city of Suceava. Continue reading...
Jorginho’s first-half penalty was enough for Chelsea to see off unadventurous Spurs10.29pm GMTDavid Hytner was in north London to witness Chelsea’s victory. His report has landed, and here it is. You know what to do: click, click, click! Thanks for reading this MBM. Stay safe and warm, wherever you are. Nighty night!Related: Jorginho penalty downs Tottenham as Chelsea pile misery on José Mourinho10.28pm GMTJose’s up. “It was a bit of a struggle in the first half. But how many chances? The penalty? So the struggling is what it is. We didn’t have the ball, correct. We didn’t create in the first half, correct. But the struggle is the penalty that decides the game. A couple of chances they had, a couple of chances we had. In the end the penalty is not a penalty that you say, dangerous situation, one on one, almost scoring; it is just a penalty that is difficult to accept, so if you lose the game with a penalty like this, it is a bit painful. But in the second half we were different. The spirit was different, the confidence too. I believe that Lucas and Lamela helped the team to change the dynamic. The team stuck together until the end, fought until the end, and that is a positive thing. To finish the game in a positive spirit helps. It was not easy for us to control it. Vinicius is a player who has an incredible spirit, but his understanding of how to press, the positions of the press, are not something that he is comfortable with. So it was difficult. But no chances. But in the second half we pressed and I think we deserved a little bit more.” Continue reading...
Foreign ministry said it terminated agreement with Taiwan to open office after Beijing urged country to ‘correct their mistake’Guyana has abruptly terminated an agreement with Taiwan to open an office in the South American country, hours after China urged Georgetown to “correct their mistake”.Earlier on Thursday, Taiwan’s foreign ministry announced it had signed an agreement with Guyana to open a Taiwan office – effectively a de facto embassy for the island that China claims as its sovereign territory with no right to diplomatic ties. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5DRVY)
Impact of Brexit protocol on politically unstable region could now get scrutiny it has long deservedThe EU’s aborted attempt to trigger article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol could be a blessing in disguise for Northern Ireland.Its decision to pull the emergency cord on an agreement that had introduced regulatory checks on some products travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland without notifiying Dublin or London was quickly reversed. Continue reading...
Friday: Calls to get security guards out of quarantine hotel corridors. Plus: Collingwood players say sorryGood morning, it’s Friday 5 February, and Imogen Dewey here bringing you the latest on the virus-that-need-not-be-named, Trump’s impeachment trial and still more about Craig Kelly.Epidemiologists say we need to get guards out of quarantine hotel corridors and get fresh air and CCTV in – pointing out, reasonably, that it doesn’t make sense to man corridors given they could spread more infectious variants of Covid-19. The warning comes after an Australian Open quarantine hotel worker in Melbourne tested positive for coronavirus four days after another guard tested positive in Perth (where it’s still masks on outdoors, please). Authorities aren’t ruling out airborne transmission, but Daniel Andrews doesn’t expect the outbreak to affect the Australian Open – though the draw has been pushed back. Meanwhile, as our borders stay shut to most others, international students are starting to look elsewhere for their studies. Continue reading...
Presence of Pal Ahluwalia deemed ‘prejudicial to peace’: a report by the vice-chancellor alleged widespread financial mismanagement at University of the South PacificFiji police have carried out a midnight raid at the home of the vice-chancellor of the prestigious University of the South Pacific and summarily deported him on orders of the prime minister, in a move described by students as a “coup” and likened by staff to “gestapo tactics”.Up to 15 immigration, police and military officials forced their way into Pal Ahluwalia’s home in Suva on Wednesday night, revoked his work permit and escorted the vice-chancellor and his wife, Sandra Price, to Nadi international airport. He was then forced on to a flight under military guard to Australia on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Jason Burke and Sofi Lundin in Gulu on (#5DR74)
Landmark ICC judgment met with mixed reactions by former victims of the Lord’s Resistance ArmyA former militia leader and child soldier from Uganda has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the international criminal court in a landmark judgment.Dominic Ongwen was convicted on Thursday of 61 individual charges of murder, rape, sexual slavery, abduction and torture committed as a commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a violent cult which waged a bloody campaign of violence in Uganda and neighbouring countries from the mid-1980s until a few years ago. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#5DR75)
Watchdog drops inquiry into 2012 Greater Manchester police operation after failing to obtain ‘sensitive’ materialThe family of an unarmed man who was fatally shot by police have vowed to continue their fight for answers after the official watchdog dropped its investigation into the operation.Anthony Grainger, 36, was shot through the chest as he sat in a car in the village of Culcheth, Cheshire, by an armed police officer known as “Q9” in March 2012. Continue reading...
Police confirm 30-year-old charged with communications offence in connection with incidentA man has been charged after a threat was allegedly sent to an SNP MP on the same day she was axed from the party’s Westminster frontbench.Joanna Cherry contacted police on Monday over a “vicious threat” to her personal safety after saying she had been sacked in a recent reshuffle. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Scottish Land Commission recommends all significant sales be subject to public interest testLandowners could be barred from buying country estates or forced to sell off land if they are accused of neglect or abuse of power under proposals being studied by Scottish ministers.The Scottish Land Commission (SLC), an influential advisory body, has recommended that all large or important land sales in Scotland should be subject to a legally enforceable public interest test to make sure the sale has wider social or environmental benefits. Continue reading...
Kayley Ketley and Latia Henderson allegedly detained the 24-year-old victim in Sydney before driving south on the Hume HighwayAn alleged kidnapping victim who was rescued after waving through a hole in her own car’s boot had been detained for 13 hours, a NSW court has been told.The 24-year-old woman was found with multiple stab wounds in the boot of her Holden sedan after it was pulled over on the Hume Highway at Berrima, south of Sydney, on Wednesday. Continue reading...
by Kyri Evangelou, Tadeu Rocha, Ana Paula Lustosa, Ch on (#5DQYV)
When Thalita Rocha's mother-in-law died due to a lack of available oxygen on a Manaus hospital's Covid ward, she vowed to raise money to deliver oxygen tanks and other lifesaving equipment to the Amazonian city's homes. Jair Bolsonaro's coronavirus policies have led to more than 226,000 deaths in Brazil, and as anger rises on the streets and protesters call for his impeachment, Rocha and other volunteers drive around Manaus offering medical kit and hope
More than 180 organisations want countries to skip event as a way of demonstrating their opposition to China’s rights recordMore than 180 human rights organisations have called for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in protest against China’s mass human rights abuses.The coalition of groups – primarily regional associations in support of Tibet, Taiwan, the Uighur community and Hong Kong – said the hopes in 2015 that awarding Beijing the Games would be a catalyst for progress, had faded. Continue reading...
Yoshiro Mori himself said he may have to go after saying that female participants meant meetings tended to ‘drag on’Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organising committee, has conceded he may have to resign after making sexist remarks about “talkative” female sports administrators.Mori, a former Japanese prime minister with a history of demeaning remarks, told a meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) that meetings attended by too many women tended to “drag on” because they talked too much. Continue reading...
Thursday: An Australian Open quarantine hotel worker tests positive to coronavirus. Plus: how a father-and-son team saved their home from bushfireGood morning. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews “assumes the worst” over latest Covid-19 positive infection, Perth’s north-eastern edge remains on high bushfire alert, and all the fallout from the parliament corridor confrontation between Craig Kelly and Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek. That, and more, for your Thursday.Mandatory Covid-19 mask rules have been reintroduced in Victoria after a 26-year-old worker at an Australian Open quarantine hotel tested positive to coronavirus. It has not yet been confirmed if the man has contracted the highly infectious UK strain of the virus, but the premier isn’t taking any chances, tightening restrictions to levels in place at the start of January. The move has created scheduling chaos in the lead-up to the Australian Open, but Daniel Andrews maintained the event would still go ahead. Meanwhile, in contrast to the US or UK, a respected social survey has found Australia’s response to Covid-19 has been marked by resilience and optimism, although Australians under 24 have responded less optimistically, with the research also suggesting the cohort is the worst-affected by the pandemic. Continue reading...
She is impossible to miss, understands both sides of the Māori debate and speaks up on foreign policy in a way that works well for Jacinda ArdernIn a room of dignitaries, New Zealand’s foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta is impossible to miss.She is the first woman to sit in the country’s parliament wearing a moko kauae, an ancient Māori tattoo form. Koru patterns wrap around her chin, framing it in rich black inks, a visual statement that “I am Māori”. Continue reading...
Move follows allegations that the rightwing group played a role in the mob attack on the US Capitol in JanuaryCanada has designated the far-right Proud Boys group as a terrorist organization alongside Isis and al-Qaida, amid growing concerns over the spread of white supremacist groups in the country.On Wednesday Bill Blair, public safety minister, also announced the federal government would designate the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups the Atomwaffen Division, the Base and the Russian Imperial Movement as terrorist entities. The federal government also added offshoots of al-Qaida, Isis and Hizbul Mujahedin to its list. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Kameel Ahmady smuggled himself out through mountainous border after being sentenced to nine yearsA British- Iranian dual national sentenced to nine years and three months in jail in Iran for co-operating with “a hostile state power” has smuggled himself out of Iran, escaping over the country’s treacherous mountainous border, and is now living in London.In an interview with the Guardian, Kameel Ahmady explained he felt had no option but to flee after spending nearly 100 days in Evin prison, including a brutal spell in solitary confinement while he was being interrogated. Continue reading...
My uncle, Lyndon Rowland, who has died aged 88, was a Korean war veteran and keen sportsman.Lyn was born in Newport, Gwent, to Violet (nee Smith) and George Rowland. He was the youngest of 12 children, only seven of whom survived to adulthood, among them my father, Roy. They grew up above the family fish and chip shop on Corporation Road. Lyn’s duties included peeling potatoes before school each morning and collecting fresh fish from Newport railway station. He would cycle home with pallets of hake and plaice balanced on his handlebars. Continue reading...
Gabriel Natale-Hjorth tells court he didn’t know Mario Cerciello Rega and partner were policeA US man charged with the murder of an Italian police officer in 2019 has told a court that the victim and his partner never showed their badges.Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19, faces a life sentence along with his friend Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, for the death in July 2019 of police officer Mario Cerciello Rega during a botched drug bust in Rome while the then teenagers were on holiday. Continue reading...
‘Higher echelons of the state’ allegedly helped get striking workers including Ricky Tomlinson convictedThree government departments including the Security Service, MI5, collaborated to help convict a group of construction workers who had gone on strike to try to improve their pay and safety measures, the appeal court has heard.Lawyers for the 14 trade unionists, including the actor Ricky Tomlinson, told the court that the “higher echelons of the state” were responsible for helping to get them unfairly convicted for offences arising out of a strike 47 years ago. Continue reading...
Hotel quarantine places should be kept for stranded people desperate to come home, medic saysAn emergency doctor has slammed Australia’s visa policies as “madness” and “dangerous” after he and his partner were told they must fly abroad and return to obtain a family visa.The federal government has been under fire over requirements baked into some visa categories that compel applicants to be outside the country at the time they are granted. The rules have forced applicants to travel out of Australia, stay offshore for several days, then return – a requirement described as “madness” during a global pandemic. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe and Guardian reporter in Yangon on (#5DP45)
Ousted Myanmar leader facing prison as civil disobedience campaign against military coup growsMyanmar police have charged ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi with possession of illegally-imported walkie-talkies, which could result in a two-year prison sentence, as a civil disobedience campaign grew against the military’s coup.A document from a police station in the capital, Naypyitaw, said military officers who searched Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence had found handheld radios that were imported illegally and used without permission by her bodyguards. The charges, confirmed by members of her party, appear to carry a maximum prison sentence of two years. Continue reading...
An elite soldier is sent on a perilous solo mission in this underwhelming drama set during the Namibian war of independenceThis South African-made action-drama unfolds against the background of a conflict little known about above the equator, much less used as a setting for film – the Namibian war of independence from 1966-90, AKA the South African border war. Often considered South Africa’s version of Vietnam, it was, among other things, a proxy fight between South Africa, then still under apartheid, and its allies at the time, and the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, who were backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.Although there’s a fair amount of on-screen contextualising in the opening minutes to explain key terms and ideas, The Recce feels made for a local audience that has a grasp of the cultural and historical background. That means it’s not easy for outsiders to read the ideology of this stylised, fictional account of an elite Afrikaner soldier, Henk Viljoen (Greg Kriek), the “recce”, who is ordered to go across enemy lines alone one last time to kill a Russian officer. Henk leaves behind his pregnant wife Nicola (Christia Visser), with whom we spend a lot of screen time as she looks anxious, remembers happier moments in her marriage and visits Henk’s parents, who are sick with worry about their son. In the narrative mix is Captain Le Roux (Grant Swanby), an English-speaking South African officer who is also worried about Henk and the general madness of the war. Continue reading...
Called on to lead Italy’s government in crisis, the former central banker will need all the skills he honed saving the European currency“Whatever it takes.” Three simple words that tamed the financial markets, saved the euro from possible collapse and turned Mario Draghi from an Italian technocrat into the central banker of his generation.And an obvious choice to head a new coalition government in Rome at a time when the country is facing the triple whammy of Covid-19, economic collapse and political chaos. Continue reading...
by Jamie Grierson Home affairs corespondent on (#5DPQ9)
Legal experts question officers’ authority to return man to site government says is not a detention centrePolice officers have been filmed carrying an asylum seeker against his will into a former army barracks site in Kent after he attempted to leave.Hundreds of men have been locked into Napier barracks, near Folkestone, following a significant coronavirus outbreak, despite reassurances from the government that the site is not a detention centre. Continue reading...
With 12 Grammy nominations since her 2008 debut, the US singer is already a genre leader – and her new EP seals her reputation with a cinematic portrait of six women commodified by their beauty“Did you see the message from Issa?” Jazmine Sullivan asks me excitedly. For all the acclaim and Grammy recognition the R&B star has accrued over the past 12 years, she still reacts to starry praise with joy and disbelief. A hopeful tweet suggesting Insecure’s Issa Rae turn Sullivan’s latest EP into a short film elicited a positive response, and later in the week, the pattern repeats with Mary J Blige. “Wait … wtf?! I’m so happy man!” Sullivan tweeted after the soul legend signals her eagerness for a guest spot.To onlookers, though, there was little surprise about the Philadelphia native – also picked to sing the national anthem at this year’s Super Bowl – being treated as one of the modern greats of R&B. When Sullivan arrived on the music scene in 2008, a much-touted 21-year-old protege of Missy Elliott, her USP was familiar in the genre: a vocal force of nature, honed in church, who drew on personal experience to deliver raw soul in the lineage of Blige (with whom she toured in 2010) and Keyshia Cole. Continue reading...
Emerald Fennell, Chloe Zhao and Regina King compete in category previously marked by its male dominance, as Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7 lead field of overall nominations
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan in Delhi on (#5DPKZ)
Singer’s message had made reference to news report about heavy-handed measures against protestersThe pop singer Rihanna has provoked the ire of the Indian government after wading into the debate over protests by farmers in the country, just as heavy police security and “war-like” barricades continue to be built up at demonstration sites around Delhi.This week, authorities began cracking down on the hundreds of thousands of farmers camped out on the Delhi border since November. Police embarked on a heavy fortification of three camps in Ghazipur, Tikri and Singhu, erecting layers of concrete barriers, digging trenches, putting up barbed-wire fences and cementing iron nails in the roads, in effect cutting off entry and exit to the sites. Continue reading...
High court ruling opens door for more people to be transferred out of ‘wholly unsuitable’ Napier barracksAn asylum seeker and potential victim of trafficking housed at the controversial Napier army barracks in Kent must be urgently rehoused in alternative accommodation within 24 hours after a high court ruling.Clive Sheldon QC, sitting as a deputy high court judge, on Tuesday ruled that the asylum seeker had made a strong case that the accommodation was inadequate for him and that the “prison-like” conditions and risk of contracting Covid-19 while there made it wholly unsuitable. Continue reading...
by Angela Giuffrida Rome correspondent on (#5DPM1)
Former ECB chief was summoned by President Mattarella after collapse of Conte’s coalition in JanuaryMario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, has accepted a mandate to try to form a new Italian government as the country seeks a way of the political crisis triggered by the collapse of its most recent coalition.Draghi, nicknamed “Super Mario” for his role in saving the European single currency, will now have to galvanise support in parliament to quickly build a technical administration needed to manage the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Continue reading...
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