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Brand delivers an assault on the senses with Telfar TV interspersed with live experimental jazz and sportswear-influenced clothesThe motto of Black-owned New York fashion brand Telfar is “It’s not for you – it’s for everybody”. If this has been hailed as a win for inclusivity, the epic show at New York fashion week was about defining what that meant for designer Telfar Clemens and his collaborators. A press release, handed out to guests, asked “how can a Black business with almost entirely Black customers - be the result of someone else’s inclusivity?”The exploration of what inclusivity means to Clemens and collaborators was an assault on the senses. Continue reading...

Dutch police say all hostages are safe after a man with a firearm entered a shop in the city centre, starting a siege that lasted several hoursA man with a firearm who held several people hostage in an Apple store in central Amsterdam has been overpowered after a siege lasting several hours, police have said, adding that the last of the hostages had been freed.Police had deployed several special units to “get the situation under control” after being alerted of an armed robbery at 5.40 pm (1640 GMT) on Tuesday, which had rapidly transformed into a hostage situation. Continue reading...

Musician and author has died at his home in Ireland after a storied career including being a member of Queens of the Stone AgeMusician Mark Lanegan has died at the age of 57.The singer, songwriter and musician was known as the lead vocalist for Screaming Trees as well as being part of Queens of the Stone Age. Continue reading...

Dan Jarvis and Johnny Mercer criticised government for removing £2,389 immigration bill only for long-serving veteransMinisters are subjecting the families of Commonwealth military veterans to “deeply unjust” visa fees after pleas to waive the costly sums for spouses and children were rejected, two MPs have argued.Labour’s Dan Jarvis and the former Conservative minister Johnny Mercer criticised the government for removing the £2,389 immigration bill only for long-serving veterans. Continue reading...

Angharad Williamson, her partner and a 14-year-old boy on trial in Cardiff for murdering five-year-old Logan MwangiA mother accused of murdering her five-year-old son while he was isolating with Covid screamed for help when she reported him missing, a jury has heard.Angharad Williamson, 30, her partner John Cole, 40, and a 14-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deny murdering Logan Mwangi between 28 July and 1 August. Continue reading...

Met’s questionnaire asks recipients if they have ‘reasonable excuse’ for attending gatherings in lockdownThe first glimpse of a Partygate questionnaire confirms that Downing Street insiders are being questioned under police caution – and asked if they have a “reasonable excuse” for attending lockdown-busting gatherings.Boris Johnson has already returned his replies to the Metropolitan police’s questions, and is believed to have argued that he attended social events in No 10 in a work capacity. Continue reading...

David Elliott says he went to bed before a decision was made to cancel all Sydney train services, as government withdraws Fair Work case

As protesters condemn Russian president, city’s defence chief says it is ready for ‘any situation’

Far-right candidate yet to secure the 500 signatures needed to qualify for first round of voteThe French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has postponed several campaign events because she is yet to secure the 500 endorsements from elected officials needed to qualify for the first round of the vote.Le Pen, the leader of the nationalist-populist National Rally, is lying second in the polls and is widely considered to be Emmanuel Macron’s most likely opponent in a second-round runoff on 24 April. Continue reading...

Prime minister Justin Trudeau says situation ‘still fragile’ after biggest police operation in nation’s historyCanadian lawmakers have voted to extend the federal government’s emergency powers, granting the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, powerful tools to prevent new blockades by those opposed to Covid-19 restrictions.Despite opposition from rival Conservatives and legal challenges to the decision from civil rights groups, experts expect the decision will have little lasting damage for Trudeau. Continue reading...

Carrie Lam announces mandatory mass testing as virus surge threatens to overwhelm healthcare system

In the damning new Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, the errors and oversights that led to two crashes are examinedFor the vast majority of travelers, stepping foot on an airplane entails a tremendous act of near-blind faith. We control our own cars, trains operate on set tracks at ground level, but flying requires us to put total trust in the expertise of a complete stranger to operate a machine too complex for us to understand. Every time these gargantuan hunks of metal don’t plummet screaming from the sky towards a certain fiery doom, it feels like a miracle, even if that’s how the majority of flights play out. Rory Kennedy’s damning new documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing takes a close look at two incidents included within the small number of flights when things go wrong, and shows us the tragedy that strikes when that sacred compact between passenger and airline is violated.“I fly a good deal, and the truth is I’ve got a bit of a fear of flying,” Kennedy tells the Guardian from behind the wheel of her car, talking transit in transit. “I like to think that when I walk down that jetway, the manufacturer of that plane is invested in keeping it up in the air, that the regulatory agencies focused on safety are doing in their job, and that at least in our country, the government is making sure the regulatory agencies enforce those safety measures. In this case, it seems that all of those agencies failed us.” Continue reading...

Liberal Fiona Martin labelled a ‘coward’ and a ‘rat from a sinking ship’ by self-styled ‘independent journalist’

Unusual calendar date reads the same forwards or backwards and is rumoured to bring good luckSome are calling it palindrome day while others are opting for the twos day (or “Twosday”) pun but, it seems, everyone is excited about the unusual calendar event taking place on the 22 February 2022 (22.02.2022), when the day’s date can be read the same way forwards or backwards.

Farmer defied skeptics to create healthcare systems for the most vulnerable in places like Haiti, Rwanda and Peru.Dr Paul Farmer, a physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing healthcare to millions of impoverished people worldwide and who co-founded the global non-profit Partners in Health, has died. He was 62.The Boston-based organization confirmed Farmer’s death on Monday, calling it “devastating” and noting he unexpectedly died in his sleep from an acute cardiac event while in Rwanda, where he had been teaching. Continue reading...

Priceless treasures stolen by the French army over a century ago have finally been returned to the African nation. Our writer joins the emotional celebrationsAt first glance, it seems to be just another day in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. Motorbike-taxis are everywhere, filling the streets of the country’s economic capital with dust and noise. But inside the swanky presidential palace, something seismic is talking place: over a century after they were looted by the French army, 26 treasures that once belonged to the nation have gone on display to the public.Art of Benin Yesterday and Today is more than just a stunning show of these ancient works, though. It segues from the looted 19th-century artefacts to work by 34 of the country’s contemporary artists. “This is a form of regained dignity,” says local art historian Didier Houénoudé, “and the culmination of a long fight started by African countries shortly before independence.” Continue reading...

Judge records not-guilty verdicts for those charged with targeting Black Lives Matter activistThe case against four men charged over the shooting of black equal rights campaigner Sasha Johnson has collapsed.Johnson, a mother of two, was shot in the head at a 30th birthday party in south London, on Sunday 23 May last year. Continue reading...

Three biggest groups in European parliament support possible move to high-risk list for money laundering

Displaced Iraqi girls stuck in camps are getting a taste of independence by running, hiking and kickboxing, thanks to a programme teaching them about sport and confidenceThe mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan are edged with a tangerine glow as our minibus drives past them. We set off earlier from Erbil, the region’s capital, and are driving to Shaqlawa, a historic city about 50 minutes away, to hike up the nearby Safeen mountain. Inside the minibus, a group of teenage girls are playing their favourite songs.The teenagers live with their families in one of Erbil’s two main camps for internally displaced people (IDPs), Baharka and Harsham, having fled Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and surrounding towns such as Tal Afar and Sinjar, when the area was captured by ISISsis in 2014. The hike has been organised by Free to Run, an NGO that supports and empowers women and girls in regions of conflict through sport, offering them life-skills training, and creating safe spaces for them to develop confidence and friends, and to reclaim public space in a country where women’s rights are lacking. Continue reading...

Latest updates: PM unveils sanctions on five Russian banks and three individuals

Many in Russia’s capital are worried about the political and economic consequences of the Ukraine crisis

West Midlands police want notes of former MP Chris Mullin, thought to hold identity of surviving pub bomberWest Midlands police have asked a judge to exclude reporters from a hearing in which they will attempt to force a journalist and former MP who exposed the Birmingham Six’s wrongful conviction to reveal his source material.The force have applied for an order under the Terrorism Act 2000 compelling Chris Mullin to hand over material, including notebooks, from his 1985-86 investigation into the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, which killed 21 people and injured more than 200. Continue reading...

Analysis: Russian president is toying with matches but has not yet lit the fuse, hence the west’s caution

Exclusive: Thousands of near-empty planes flown since March 2020, new figures revealAlmost 15,000 “ghost flights” have departed from the UK, according to newly revealed official figures.The ghost flights, defined as those with no passengers or less than 10% of passenger capacity, operated from all 32 airports listed in the data. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights between March 2020 and September 2021. Manchester and Gatwick were the next highest. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period, although the data covered only international departure and not domestic flights. Continue reading...

Fears over ‘forced exclusion’ of vulnerable pupils whose families will be too scared to send them to school

Pro-choice supporters danced outside Colombia's constitutional court in downtown Bogotá, the capital, after it decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.Judges ruled five against four to decriminalise the procedure in the South American country after rulings in Mexico and Argentina also lowered barriers to abortion.Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated against the ruling

Centuries-old code of silence helped Switzerland become a magnet for tax-dodging wealthy clients

Remote Sgt Adam Eberl tells court he did not consider Walker to be dangerous when police first encountered him

Save the Children is releasing a powerful series of photographs by world-renowned photographer Jim Huylebroek to highlight the human tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan as the country this week marks six months since the dramatic transition of power

Federal politicians and anti-vaxxer groups shared the A Current Affair clip before it was removed from social media by Nine

Tongans have struggled with makeshift satellite services as repairs to undersea cable connecting Tonga to the world were madeTonga has been reconnected to the world following repairs to a submarine cable, a month after a volcanic eruption and tsunami cut communications to the remote Pacific island nation.“People on the main island will have access almost immediately,” the Tonga Cable chief executive, James Panuve, told Reuters by telephone, after a repair ship handed over the restored cable on Tuesday afternoon. Continue reading...

Graves and Lipman were partners in both life and art for three decades. Their acutely observed images, taken at American social rituals from proms to football games, capture fleeting moments of connection, of longing, of restraint and desire Continue reading...

NSW government drops case against rail workers’ union; Australia closes embassy in Lviv, Ukraine; political parties should ‘stand as one’ in condemning Russia, Labor says; Clive Palmer cancels press club appearance; at least 34 Covid deaths recorded. Follow the latest updates live

Residents say quake shook their homes and was like wardrobe falling over or ‘explosion against the window’A 2.8 magnitude earthquake struck the West Midlands late on Monday night, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said.According to the BGS, the quake hit the town of Walsall, near Birmingham, at a depth of seven kilometres (4.35 miles) at 10.59pm. Continue reading...

Ahead of key Uttar Pradesh elections, state police accused of being ‘mercenaries’ of hardline Hindu nationalist governmentAccording to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the scene emerged, so too did suspicions.

Kenya has delivered an emphatic plea to Russia to pursue diplomacy, citing its own history. 'This situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing,' Martin Kimani told the security council. 'Today across the border of every single African country live our countrymen with whom we share deep bonds.' Continue reading...

US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency UN security council meeting that Vladimir Putin's claim that Russian troops would take on a 'peacekeeping' role in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas was 'nonsense'. The late-night meeting took place after Putin recognised separatist areas of eastern Ukraine as independent. Member states called for diplomacy while Ukrainian representative Sergiy Kyslytsya called for an immediate withdrawal of occupation troops. 'The United Nations is sick. It has been hit by the virus spread by the Kremlin.' Continue reading...

A revolutionary, no-nonsense cooked clod of clay has given South Kilburn a new lease of life. But can the rest of the rundown estate live up to its refreshed streetscape?If 1960s housing was known for concrete panels, the 1980s for cartoonish pediments, and the 2000s for tacky (sometimes fatal) clip-on cladding, the current epoch will be remembered for bricks. But not just any old brick. It is a yellowish, biscuity brick, whose particular patina falls somewhere between a digestive and a Hobnob. It is a brick that summons strains of the traditional London stock and Cambridge gault, suggesting a crunchy, crumbly, wholesome goodness, no matter what actually lies behind the facade. It is the comforting Hovis ad of cladding choices, a no-nonsense cooked clod of clay, which comes with an unlikely name: Mystique.The irrepressible rise of the Mystique brick can be traced back to its use on one particular housing project in Cambridge, which won the Stirling prize in 2008. With its combination of terraced streets, mews houses and courtyards, the Accordia development was a refreshing bolt of common-sense design that would influence the next decade and more of British housing. In an age when new blocks of flats looked increasingly cheap, the low-rise buttery brickwork suggested a new era of weight, depth and permanence, a return to front doors on the street, housing as it used to be. Continue reading...

From waterlogged cars to crushed roofs and powerless homes, the UK has been in a state of climate siegeFlooding, power cuts and destruction to homes continue to impact people in parts of the country after three named storms struck the UK in a week.In Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire, cars remain stuck in a flooded road after Storm Franklin hit on Sunday. Martin Crapper, 62, said people in “countless cars” were trapped “in the freezing cold flood water in the dark” on the main road from Matlock to Buxton. Continue reading...

The inconvenient truth of the scarcity of ICU beds has been partially addressed by altering their definitionThere is a meme from 2016 of a dog sitting in a room engulfed in fire proclaiming “THIS IS FINE”. It feels increasingly relevant to healthcare. As the flames of Covid rose around the world, the response from New Zealand continued to invoke international admiration. We could smell the smoke, but there was no fire. Within the healthcare sector, business – mostly – continued as usual.We knew it would not always be this way. Overseas we witnessed patients and colleagues disappearing under successive waves of case numbers, hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths. Many of us applauded our national response which stood in stark opposition to strategies chosen elsewhere. Continue reading...

More women qualified for places than men for first time since universities admitted to deliberately failing female applicantsJapanese women have outperformed men in medical school entrance exams for the first time since universities admitted they had deliberately failed female applicants to inflate the number of male doctors.According to new government data, 13.6% of female candidates passed exams at 81 medical schools last spring, compared with 13.51% of men. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Ukraine is 'not afraid of anyone or anything' after Russian president Vladimir Putin recognised separatist regions of eastern Ukraine as independent and then ordered in forces. 'Ukraine most certainly considers these last Russian actions as the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country,' he said. 'All responsibility for all the consequences connected with the decision mentioned above lies on the Russian political leadership'

The return of the statue comes after a years-long campaign to have it returned to Rapa Nui, as Easter Island is known locallyA huge Moai statue, one of the iconic stone monuments from Easter Island, began its journey back home on Monday, after being removed and taken to Santiago, where it has been housed since 1870.The return of the statue comes after a years-long campaign to have it returned to Rapa Nui, as Easter Island is known locally. Continue reading...

Pop star’s memoir was subject of a massive bidding war, and comes weeks after she sent a cease-and-desist letter to her sister over her own autobiographyBritney Spears has landed a “record-breaking” publishing deal for a tell-all memoir about her rise to fame, her relationship with her family and her experience living under a conservatorship for more than a decade.Page Six reported on Monday that publisher Simon & Schuster had secured the deal for the pop star’s memoir for as much as US$15m (£11m, A$20.8m) after a massive bidding war involving multiple publishers. Continue reading...

Colombia has decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, following rulings in Mexico and Argentina that improve access to abortionColombia has decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, adding to a recent string of legal victories for reproductive rights in Latin America.The South American country’s constitutional court ruled five against four to decriminalise the procedure on Monday evening. The decision follows a series of rulings in Mexico and Argentina that lowered barriers to abortion. Continue reading...

The majority of Australians support a position which is the polar opposite to the government’s current tub-thumping on national security

Prime minister Scott Morrison says Australia makes ‘no apology’ for location of surveillance plane

Russian deployment follows decision to recognise territories in south-east will be viewed in Ukraine and by other western allies as an occupation

Video released by Ukraine appears to show a column of military vehicles with their headlights on moving in convoy along a road. The officials said it was not possible to tell if the troops belonged to the regular Russian army, or were from Russian-controlled separatist units

Chair of forthcoming strategic review says force must modernise to tackle blockchain-era criminalsA “crisis of confidence in policing” can only be put right through fundamental reform or risk the end of policing by consent, the head of a review of the police service will warn on Tuesday.Sir Michael Barber, the chair of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, will say that a “Betamax police force” is unsuccessfully pursuing “blockchain-enabled criminals” as he urges modernisation of crime-fighting technology and new training for officers. Continue reading...