A car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone in the south-western German city of Trier on Tuesday, killing four people, including a baby, and seriously injuring 15, officials said. The driver, identified as a 51-year-old German man from the area, was arrested at the scene. 'We see these pictures again and again on television, and we always think that this cannot happen in Trier,' the mayor, Wolfram Leibe, said after visiting the site. 'I'm speechless'
In ‘time capsule’ interviews with Vanity Fair, the singer listens, responds and sometimes rolls her eyes at her younger selfIn 2009, a website went viral – it allowed you to send yourself a message that would automatically turn up in your inbox three years later. A friend of mine sent himself the number of a girl he liked. Given the same exercise years earlier at school, another friend sent himself the lyrics of a Black Eyed Peas song. I never sent myself anything, though I probably would have chosen some edgy quote from a political philosopher. These exercises are always telling because you get to see what was important to you when you were young – and whether you lived up to it years later.Related: A man tried to body shame the gloriously unabashed Billie Eilish. It didn’t go well Continue reading...
by Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent on (#5B2QD)
NHS says clinic has suspended new referrals after pair, including woman who took blockers, win court caseChildren under the age of 16 considering gender reassignment are unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent to be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs, the high court has ruled.Even in cases involving teenagers under 18 doctors may need to consult the courts for authorisation for medical intervention, three senior judges have ruled in an action brought against the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust, which runs the UK’s main gender identity development service for children. Continue reading...
Irina Antonova, head of Pushkin Museum for 52 years, brought Mona Lisa to Moscow despite cold warA longtime museum director dubbed the grande dame of the Russian art world has died at 98, prompting an outpouring of grief and admiration for the woman who brought the Mona Lisa to Moscow and returned masterpieces hidden for decades from the Soviet public to her museum’s exhibition halls.Irina Antonova, whose work at the Pushkin Museum began under Joseph Stalin and ended under Vladimir Putin, died on Monday evening of complications from the coronavirus. Her death was confirmed by the press service of the museum, where she served as director for 52 years from 1961 to 2013. Continue reading...
Limb thought to come from dead Taliban fighter as case adds to disgust over recent report detailing ADF abuseAfghan civil society leaders have reacted with disgust to photographs of an Australian special forces soldier drinking alcohol from the prosthetic leg of a slain Taliban fighter.Images published by the Guardian on Tuesday showed a senior soldier who is still enlisted in the Australian Defence Force drinking beer from the leg in an unofficial bar on a base in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province, in 2009. Continue reading...
Taste the treacle as Nicole Kidman’s Broadway liberals rebuke a rural high school – and learn a few things about themselvesLike High School Musical on some sort of absinthe/Xanax cocktail, The Prom is an outrageous work of steroidal show tune madness, directed by the dark master himself, Ryan “Glee” Murphy, who is to jazz-hands musical theatre what Nancy Meyers is to upscale romcom or Friedrich Nietzsche to classical philology.
Foreign ministry disavows bill passed by parliament demanding rise in uranium enrichmentThe Iranian foreign ministry has been forced to disown a bill passed by the country’s parliament requiring the government to step up uranium enrichment closer to the level needed for a nuclear weapon in retaliation for the assassination of a top nuclear scientist.The bill also included a provision requiring the government to suspend UN nuclear inspections if western powers that are still part of the 2015 nuclear accords, as well as China and Russia, do not re-establish Iran’s access to world banking and oil markets within a month. Continue reading...
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl song, to be played in a censored version on some BBC radio stations, will be ‘stripped of its value’, says CaveNick Cave has accused the BBC of “mutilating” Fairytale of New York, following the broadcaster’s recent decision to play a censored version of the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s festive classic on Radio 1.The BBC recently announced that the 1987 hit would still be played in its original form on Radio 2, while 6 Music DJs would be able to choose either version. The inconsistency of the policy has dredged up what is becoming a well-flogged pantomime horse. Continue reading...
They are used to spending Christmas up close and personal, but the criteria for playing Santa – being older and overweight – put them at significant risk of catching coronavirusRandyl Lee Walker starts bleaching his hair and beard every October. Both are dark, so it takes six weeks to reach the snow-white shade he’s going for. When he’s finished the result is nothing short of transformative.Related: Elbow bumps and open windows: UK scientific advisers' Christmas tips Continue reading...
These photographs and stories were produced by people living with HIV, who had been on a five-month workshop that developed their visual approaches and confronted the stigma associated with the illness
Photographer arrested for disrespect after private shoot of dancer in ancient costumeEgyptian police have detained a photographer for disrespect after he shot images of a dancer in ancient costume at the Pyramid of Djoser outside Cairo, a security source has confirmed.Rumours had circulated on social media that the model, Salma al-Shimi, had been arrested after Monday’s shoot at the Saqqara necropolis, 20 miles south of Cairo, but the source said police detained the photographer on Monday. Continue reading...
Even the biggest stars are often defined by their turns as villains. Perhaps they should embrace the evilA quick experiment: Anthony Hopkins is one of history’s most celebrated thesps, a star of stage and screen for more than 60 years. Picture him. What do you see? Is it John Quincy Adams in Amistad? Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man? Or is it Hannibal Lecter, leering through plexiglass, theth-theth-thething into the camera? If you said it’s anything other than that last one, then congratulations. Why not pour yourself a nice glass of chianti to wash down your LIES.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Homes of 11 members of far-right group Wolfsbrigade 44 raided in three statesMore than 180 police officers have raided homes in three German states after the German government banned a far-right group.The homes of 11 members of the Wolfsbrigade 44 group were searched in Hesse, Mecklenburg West-Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia to confiscate the group’s funds and far-right propaganda material, the German news agency dpa reported. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Image obtained by Guardian Australia shows limb being used to down drinks in a special forces bar in AfghanistanSenior Australian special forces soldiers drank beer out of the prosthetic leg of a dead Taliban soldier at an unauthorised bar in Afghanistan – with a photograph of the act being revealed for the first time by Guardian Australia.A number of photographs obtained by the Guardian show one senior soldier – who is still serving – sculling from the leg in an unofficial bar known as the Fat Lady’s Arms, which was set up inside Australia’s special forces base in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province, in 2009. Continue reading...
1 December 1930: The Parliamentary Under Secretary for Scotland responds to criticism of the removal of the inhabitants from the remote islandRelated: St Kilda: the edge of the worldSir Reginald Macleod of Macleod, speaking in Edinburgh on Saturday, referred to the removal of the inhabitants from the island of St. Kilda, of which he is proprietor. He intended, he said, to give the Government no peace until the people were properly treated and the restoration of their property secured. It was not enough to take the people from their homes and simply dump them down elsewhere; these people were entire strangers to modern life, and he demanded that the Government should continue to care for them and see that they were not lost in strange places. Continue reading...
by Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies on (#5B2BT)
Agriculture ministry drawn in to row after state media prompts backlash with claims that China leads global kimchi industrySocial media users in China and South Korea are embroiled in another row, this time over the provenance of kimchi, the fermented cabbage dish that most people recognise as an essential part of the Korean diet.Not, though, in China, where state media have sparked an online backlash after one of the country’s fermented dishes received certification from the International Organisation for Standardisation [ISO]. Continue reading...
Cardinal says in first interview since return to Rome he didn’t know extent of wrongdoing and ‘it would be better for the church if these things hadn’t happened’
New Zealand security forces should have focused more on threat of rightwing terrorism, royal commission toldNew Zealand’s Islamic community has told the Christchurch massacre inquiry that it knew it was “vulnerable” to a terror attack, and that security forces had wrongly focused on terrorism committed by Muslim extremists.“We asked for help. We knew we were vulnerable to such an attack. We did not know who, when, what, where or how. But we knew,” the Federation of the Islamic Associations of New Zealand said in a submission made public on Monday. Continue reading...
Province’s breakaway movement nominates exiled leader as interim president as conflict-ridden Indonesian region marks independence dayWest Papuan leaders have declared a provisional “government-in-waiting” of the contested Indonesian province, as the United Nations said it was “disturbed by escalating violence” there, including the killing of a child allegedly by security forces.The province marks independence day on 1 December, the anniversary of West Papua’s declaration of independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1961 and the raising of its now-banned Morning Star flag. Continue reading...
Actor who plays Princess Margaret adds her voice to calls for Netflix to add a disclaimerHelena Bonham Carter has said The Crown has a “moral responsibility” to tell viewers that it is a drama, rather than historical fact, in the wake of calls for a “health warning” for people watching the series.The actor, who played Princess Margaret in series three and four of the Netflix hit drama, told an official podcast for the show that there was an important distinction between “our version”, and the “real version”. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#5B275)
Amnesty report accuses sites of openly signalling they will bow to authoritarian regimesFacebook and YouTube are complicit in “censorship and repression on an industrial scale” in Vietnam, according to a report by Amnesty International that accuses the platforms of openly signalling that they are willing to bow to the wishes of authoritarian regimes.Facebook’s executives have repeatedly promoted the platform as a bastion of “free expression”, but in Vietnam, where there is little tolerance for dissent, the company complied with hundreds of requests to censor content earlier this year. This includes peaceful criticism of the state by activists, which is protected under international human rights law. Continue reading...
Pressure mounts for investigation of state collusion in loyalist gunmen’s 1989 killing of Belfast solicitorThe government has decided not to order a public inquiry into the 1989 murder of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, despite calls from across the political spectrum for fresh scrutiny of one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles.Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, made the announcement in the House of Commons on Monday evening, delivering a devastating blow to a decades-long campaign for a new investigation into an attack that involved state collusion. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer has said Labour will abstain from the the Covid tier vote as the government scrambled to contain a Tory rebellion by unveiling a multimillion-pound fund for pubs.Starmer has decided to break with the government in a vote on Covid restrictions for the first time, but will not vote against the restrictions adding that this would 'not be in the interest of the country'.Tuesday’s Commons vote on the tiers system is due to replace lockdown rules from Wednesday and put 99% of the country into tiers 2 and 3. The vote is still expected to pass
Bolsonaro ally Marcelo Crivella lost in all of Brazilian city’s 49 constituenciesRio de Janeiro is rejoicing after voters inflicted a humiliating electoral defeat on a widely loathed neo-Pentecostal bishop considered by some to be the worst mayor in the city’s history.Marcelo Crivella, a gospel-singing preacher who has branded homosexuality a “terrible evil” and had shunned Rio’s annual carnival, lost in every one of the city’s 49 constituencies in Sunday’s run-off vote. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent and Daniel Bof on (#5B1CY)
Irish foreign minister also calls for avoidance of blame game as ‘truth of Brexit’ becomes clearSenior Irish and French and ministers have warned that the EU is not going to fall into a Brexit “negotiating trap” being laid by the UK as both sides entered into what the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has described as “the last week or so” of substantive talks.Simon Coveney, who has had a leading role in the first phase of negotiations over the Irish border, said at the same time both sides must avoid engaging in a blame game as the “truth of Brexit” and its subsequent challenges become clear. Continue reading...
Official says no one was present at scene, and blames Israel and an exiled opposition groupA senior Iranian security official has accused Israel of using “electronic devices” to carry out a remote assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the country’s supreme national security council, made the comments at the funeral for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Continue reading...
No more Mr Nice Guys! With his role in the HBO miniseries, Grant – like Richard Gere and Vince Vaughn – has swapped charm for smarm, reflecting a changing societyHugh Grant made his name in the 90s as a squeaky-clean charmer, but anyone who has been keeping tabs on his career will not have been surprised to see him show up in the HBO miniseries The Undoing as an unhinged philanderer, attacking a man with his bare teeth in a prison-yard brawl. For a while now, the actor who used to warm our hearts has been doing his best to chill our blood. And he has been doing it pretty well: as a scheming politician in A Very English Scandal, as a scheming investigator in The Gentlemen and, best of all, as a scheming theatre impresario in Paddington 2. As mid-career renewals go, Grant’s has been one of the best and The Undoing, six hours of top-notch trash that wraps up tonight, has made the most of its newly depraved star.The reinvention of the romantic lead is hardly a new phenomenon – it is more than 75 years since Murder, My Sweet turned Dick Powell from a fresh-faced musical star to a whisky-addled noir antihero, but in recent years it has become an especially popular trope. Richard Gere, who, like Grant, found screen stardom by flirting faux-modestly with flattered young ladies, has lately gone to great pains to show off his ugly side. He forged a career from playing wealthy, winsome suitors, but his recent turns as a hedge-fund magnate (Arbitrage), a moneyed philanthropist (The Benefactor), a high-flying politician (The Dinner) and a Murdoch-esque media mogul (MotherFatherSon) have all helped to flip the twinkly-eyed archetype on its head. Gere’s message is clear: I’m not the white knight you all thought I was. Continue reading...
by Written by Nkiacha Atemnkeng, read by Adetomiwa Ed on (#5B164)
After being offered a prestigious international literary residency, Nkiacha Atemnkeng was excited for his first visit to the US – until he turned up at the embassy for his interview Continue reading...
Tehran holds state funeral for Fakhrizadeh, who it says was killed remotely using ‘electronic devices’Iran has bestowed martyr status on the nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh at a full state funeral in Tehran, vowing to redouble his work after an assassination pinned on arch-foe Israel.In footage carried by state TV, Fakhrizadeh’s casket was shown surrounded by flowers and pictures of him, alongside portraits of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January. Continue reading...
Scott Morrison has said a tweet by a Chinese official showing a fabricated image of an Australian soldier slitting a child’s throat is ‘truly repugnant’ and ‘utterly outrageous’. The Australian prime minister said on Monday he was seeking an apology from the Chinese government over the image, which was an apparent reference to a recent report from a four-year-long official investigation into the conduct of Australian special forces soldiers in Afghanistan
My Gaza by Jehad al-Saftawi is a personal account of peoples’ suffering as they go about their lives under Israeli blockadeWorking as a journalist in Gaza, says Palestinian photographer Jehad al-Saftawi, is like walking barefoot in a field of thorns. “You must always watch where you step. Each neighbourhood is composed of its own intimate social network, and travelling through them with a camera makes you a significant suspicion.“You’re caught between the two sides of the conflict: the rulers of Gaza limit what you can photograph and write about, imprisoning and torturing those who disobey. At the same time, the Israeli army sees you as a potential threat that must be eliminated, as has been the fate of many Palestinian journalists.” Continue reading...
Royal commission says no government agency made any ‘significant effort to consult’ at start of pandemicThe federal government has been sharply criticised by the disability royal commission for its “serious failure” in not adequately consulting people with disability or creating a specific plan to protect them at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.Those failings “produced serious adverse consequences for many people with disability”, the commission said in a report tabled in parliament on Monday. Continue reading...
Ducks have become a symbol of Thailand’s pro-democracy protests in Bangkok after demonstrators used them as shields against police water cannon and teargas Continue reading...
In the next instalment of our series of lockdown diaries, photographer Sarah Lee shares her observations from her daily bike rides as autumn slides towards winter and things get darker Continue reading...
Sex traffickers can make profits of over £1m a year per brothel – and Covid lockdowns have only made it easier for them to operateThree weeks ago, police entered a brothel in south-east England after receiving intelligence about criminal activity there. Inside, they found eight Romanian women wearing face shields and masks, and laminated Covid-19 health and safety sheets on the wall. An industrial-size bottle of hand sanitiser stood by the front door.“On the surface, this did not look like a place where criminality and sexual exploitation was taking place,” says Cristina Huddleston, a trafficking victim support specialist who joined the raid that evening. Continue reading...
Audit office says pandemic-related supply chain, workforce and contractor delay averages three to six monthsThe joint strike fighter is one of 15 major defence projects suffering delays due to Covid-19, the Australian National Audit Office has said.In a report released on Monday, the ANAO found defence’s largest 25 projects currently have a budget of $78.7bn – which is $24.2bn more than when they achieved second pass approval. Continue reading...
4 December 1970 Standing water lay in hollows in the saturated pastures creating ponds of all shapes and sizesKENT: Along the green track, the puddles reached over our boots and the riverside trees grew straight out of the water joining their own reflection in an unbroken pattern. Standing water lay in hollows in the saturated pastures and that rich, clay lowland around Smarden became a pond-collector’s paradise. There were round ones, square ones, elongated ones often traceable in rows marching across the landscape from pasture to woodland. The odd thing about many of them was their occurrence on high ground with no stream feeding into them or flowing from them. One or two were easily identifiable as the traditional farm pond with a few ducks happily plunging about in sight of the farmhouse. The largest one, behind Potkin Farm, was so impressive that it almost qualified as a lake.Related: Country diary: ringing the changes in the bird population Continue reading...
She hit the big time playing the high-powered political fixer Olivia Pope. In real life, she has spent years campaigning for Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats. So what’s someone who lives and breathes politics doing in Ryan Murphy’s musical The Prom?
Exclusive: Akshata Murty owns 5% of IMM, which used structure that could reduce taxes payable in IndiaThe wife of the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is a shareholder in a restaurants business that funnelled investments through a letterbox company in the tax haven of Mauritius, in a structure that could allow its backers to avoid taxes in India.The business, International Market Management (IMM), is hoping to build a chain of dozens of restaurants across India, via franchise agreements with the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and the American fast food brand Wendy’s. Continue reading...
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