Edgar Wright’s time-travel film plays like a 60s pop song building towards a big climaxThe nostalgia gauge is code-red on Last Night in Soho, a gaudy time-travel romp that whisks its modern-day heroine to a bygone London that probably never existed outside our fevered cultural imagination. It’s the era of Dusty Springfield and Biba; great music, cool threads. British writer-director Edgar Wright takes a grab-bag of 1960s ingredients, paints them up and makes them dance to his tune. His film is thoroughly silly and stupidly enjoyable. To misquote William Faulkner, the past isn’t dead, it’s propping up the bar at the Café de Paris.“You like that retro style, huh?” a classmate remarks to Eloise Turner, a 21st-century design student – and you can bet your house she does. Eloise is up from deepest Cornwall to attend the London College of Fashion, still haunted by her mother’s suicide and struggling to find her feet in a city that’s not like the one she expected. Thomasin McKenzie plays her as your classic fairytale ingenue, guileless and wide-eyed, entirely out of her depth. She’s eyeing the future but her feet are stuck in the past. Continue reading...
Structural experts have ‘unambiguously’ advised that building poses a risk and should be carefully taken downMinisters are expected to announce this month that Grenfell Tower will be demolished because of safety concerns, more than four years after the fire that killed 72 people.Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, has been told that the building poses a risk to the local community including the Kensington Aldridge Academy in west London, a secondary school located near the charred remains. Continue reading...
Police regard death of Fawziyah Javed, 31, at Scottish landmark as suspiciousA man has been charged in connection with the death of a woman who fell from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.Fawziyah Javed, 31, from Pudsey, West Yorkshire, fell from the landmark in Holyrood Park on Thursday. Police and emergency services were called at about 9pm, but Javed died at the scene. Continue reading...
Peers’ challenge to government may see it arguing for lower environmental standards at home while hosting global summitMinisters are facing a fortnight of showdowns with peers over weak post-Brexit green protections just weeks before the Cop26 summit on the environment.An alliance of crossbench and opposition peers have tabled more than 100 amendments to the environment bill in an attempt to beef up protections for nature, air quality and water standards and give the new green watchdog more powers. Continue reading...
The actor’s latest project is a book to teach teenagers their rights. Here, she sits down with four young people to hear what they’re fighting for• Read an interview with Jolie hereAngelina Jolie How do you feel the older generation are handling things?Christina Adane, 17, a British anti-poverty campaigner, originally from Ethiopia If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said they had failed us and left us with a bunch of problems. I still feel that way at times, but I think cross-generational communication is crucial when fighting issues like racial and climate justice. It’s easy to fall into the mentality of us v them, youth v old people in power. But loads of older people want to help us. So it’s about connecting with decision-makers and ensuring they are listening, so they can represent us where we are not represented – in government, at meetings at the top of companies. We need to work with the older generation. Continue reading...
With big-hitters from returning heroes Jane Campion, Pedro Almodóvar and Paolo Sorrentino, plus an electrifying return from maverick Paul Schrader, it’s a heck of a starting bill at the LidoThis time last year, the film world raised a collective glass of prosecco to Venice. It was the first film festival to happen during that brief, sweet interlude between European lockdowns, and the organisation pulled off the Covid protocols magnificently – spaced seating, strict mask wearing, online ticketing. All that is still in place, and the gardens of the Casino compound remain a leafy oasis of calm.But this year things aren’t quite so simple. For a start there are many more people attending, and the booking system has been unpredictable. Tickets for each screening become available exactly 74 hours in advance, some selling out within minutes, which means people are waking to book tickets at 6.30am, then spending the day anxiously trying to think ahead in three-day cycles. Add to this frustratingly long queues to get into the Casino area via temperature checks and bag checks, and only two days in – at time of writing – nerves are beginning to fray. Continue reading...
As country reels from Auckland attack, leader of mosque targeted in Christchurch atrocity says the terrorist is ‘not from us’New Zealand has responded to its first terror attack by an Islamic state-inspired extremist with an outpouring of support from and for the Muslim community, as leaders emphasise that the actions of the attacker must not be seen as a reflection on the wider community.On Friday, a man stabbed a number of shoppers at a supermarket in Auckland, before being shot dead by police. Continue reading...
Six-year-old pronounced dead a day after his younger brother also died after eating soup made from death cap mushroomsA second child of an Afghan family evacuated from Kabul to Poland has died after eating soup containing death cap mushrooms, which the family had unknowingly gathered in a forest outside their quarantine centre.The six-year-old boy received an emergency liver transplant but doctors were unable to save him. His five-year-old brother died on Thursday at Poland’s main children’s hospital in Warsaw, where both were treated. Continue reading...
Existing legislation meant the knifeman, who was known to police, could not be jailed despite evidence he was planning an attackAs New Zealand reels from the second terror attack in its recent history, a picture is emerging of an Islamic State-inspired extremist who was well known to the government, and whom extensive surveillance and control measures were not able to contain.The man was shot dead by police after stabbing a number of shoppers at a supermarket in Auckland. After the attack, prime minster Jacinda Ardern said it was a “terror attack” by a “violent extremist” who was known by police. Continue reading...
by Nadeem Badshah (now) , Tom Ambrose,Harriet Grant ( on (#5P3X8)
Denmark has recorded a rise in cases in nursing homes; UK vaccines watchdog says not enough evidence to roll out Covid jabs to 12- to 15-year-olds; North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to fight Covid in ‘our style’
Māori liken their trademark application to France’s effort to protect the term champagne, while Australia says you can’t claim a plantLong before the name Mānuka became synonymous with a booming honey industry, celebrity endorsements and protracted global disputes, it was known in Māori legend. After Tāne Mahuta, the god of forests, separated his parents from their locked embrace, he set out to cloak Papatūānuku (his earth mother) in trees. One of these trees, born from his union with Tawake-Toro, was the Mānuka, with its dense, spiky foliage, delicate white flowers and unique pollen.Mānuka is considered a taonga, or treasure, of which Māori are considered the kaitiaki (guardians). The legend, and the Māori relationship to Mānuka, has become an important tool in a global battle to protect Aotearoa New Zealand’s Mānuka honey brand, the most bitter part of which is between New Zealand and Australia. Continue reading...
The new reality show on Charli and Dixie D’Amelio attempts to transfer one kind of gargantuan fame into another with mixed results“I get asked why I’m famous a lot,” says Charli D’Amelio, the most followed person on TikTok, early in the third episode of her family’s new Hulu reality show. Just two years ago, she was a high school sophomore in suburban Connecticut posting snippets of dances and jokes with friends to the app. Now 17, she has 123.6 million followers on the app; she and her sister Dixie, 20, are two of the most recognizable faces among Gen Z, superstars on the most culturally influential social media platform in the country right now.Yet “I don’t consider myself famous,” she says. “I’m just a person that a lot of people follow for some reason. I think it was right place, right time. I think it was a vibe, maybe, that I give off.” Continue reading...
Beijing also reportedly aiming to increase humanitarian assistance, as Taliban prepares to unveil new cabinetChina has promised to keep its embassy in Kabul open and “beef up” relations, the Taliban have said, as Afghanistan’s new rulers worked on preparing their new government and winning international recognition.A spokesman for the Islamist militia, Suhail Shaheen, said on Friday a senior member of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar had been told by China’s deputy foreign minister that Beijing also aimed to increase humanitarian assistance. Continue reading...
From Medea to Helen of Troy, Greek myths still speak to the modern world. Classicist Charlotte Higgins explores stories that weave together the fabric of our existenceAmong my most treasured books as a child was a volume of Greek myths. My eldest brother, a sleep-deprived junior doctor at the time, bought it for me from a warren-like bookshop near his flat in London. The shop, sadly, is long gone, but I still have Children of the Gods by Kenneth McLeish, illustrated by Elisabeth Frink. It infiltrated my childhood imagination – it was one of the things that set me on the path to studying classics, and becoming a writer. The stories were strange and wild, full of powerful witches, unpredictable gods and sword-wielding slayers. They were also extreme: about families who turn murderously on each other; impossible tasks set by cruel kings; love that goes wrong; wars and journeys and terrible loss. There was magic, there was shapeshifting, there were monsters, there were descents to the land of the dead. Humans and immortals inhabited the same world, which was sometimes perilous, sometimes exciting. The stories were obviously fantastical. All the same, brothers really do war with each other. People tell the truth but aren’t believed. Wars destroy the innocent. Lovers are parted. Parents endure the grief of losing children. Women suffer violence at the hands of men. The cleverest of people can be blind to what is really going on. The law of the land can contradict what you know to be just. Mysterious diseases devastate cities. Floods and fire tear lives apart.For the Greeks, the word muthos simply meant a traditional tale. In the 21st century, we have long left behind the political and religious framework in which these stories first circulated – but their power endures. Greek myths remain true for us because they excavate the very extremes of human experience: sudden, inexplicable catastrophe; radical reversals of fortune; seemingly arbitrary events that transform lives. They deal, in short, in the hard basic facts of the human condition. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, myths were everywhere. The stories were painted on the pottery that people ate and drank from; they were carved into the pediments of the temples outside which they sacrificed to the gods; they were the raw material of the songs they sang and the rituals they performed. Myths provided a shared cultural language, and a tentacular, ever-branching network of routes towards understanding the nature of the world, of human and divine life. They explained the stars. They told of the creation of plants and animals, rocks and streams. They hovered around individual locales, explaining the origin of towns, regional cults and families. They reinforced customs and norms – sometimes offering a narrative justification for habits of oppression, not least of women and outsiders. For a people scattered liberally across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea – Greek culture flowed out well beyond the boundaries of the modern Greek state – they also provided a shared sense of cultural identity. Continue reading...
I could have sold my 1.3kg truffle for a fortune. But I had something more special in mindIt was 2am when I left the house that night in November 1999. I was heading out into the Motovun forest in Istria, in the north-west of Croatia, to hunt for truffles. Serious truffle hunting is done at night – it’s better for the dogs, as the moisture carries the smell of the truffle better, and also it’s harder to be followed.It was a freezing night – the temperatures at that time of year dip below zero. Being a truffle hunter is not an easy job: it’s usually wet and muddy in the forest. You often get scratched and dirty, and can return empty-handed. Still, I had a gut feeling that the night would be a good one, so with Diana, my trusty German pointer, I set off. Continue reading...
After seeing a woman die in childbirth, Liyatu Ayuba stepped in and has now delivered 118 babiesHaving watched a woman and her baby die needlessly after being refused admission to a hospital over a lack of money, Liyatu Ayuba wanted to never let it happen again.The 62-year-old is one of Nigeria’s nearly 3 million internally displaced people (IDPs) – driven out of their homes by the violence of the Boko Haram Islamist militants. Ayuba fled Gwoza in the north-eastern state of Borno in 2011 with her family. After her husband was killed by Boko Haram and her teenage son badly wounded, she went to the makeshift Durumi 1 IDP camp, in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where about 500 families live. Continue reading...
The auteur’s long-planned passion project is finally edging toward production, an audacious gambit that he plans to mostly fund himselfWhen it was announced that Francis Ford Coppola might finally make his long-gestating film Megalopolis, a jolt of electric excitement went through the bodies of cineastes around the world. Like the unrealized visions of Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, it seemed as if it would only be screened in the imaginary multiplexes of cinephile’s dreams. Yet, against all odds, Coppola seems to be dusting off the director’s beret.Related: Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Life is a great screenwriter’ Continue reading...
Rajinder Singh, AKA the Skipping Sikh, is preparing for his first 26.2-mile race – with community support and the memory of his father powering him alongRajinder Singh was five when he learned to run. While his father hand-cut the grass to feed their buffalo, in the village of Devidaspura in Punjab, Singh sat on a nice clean sheet, so the ants didn’t bite, and watched. When the work was done, his father taught him “how to jump rope, how to run, how to look after yourself”.His father, a keen athlete who had served in the second world war with the British Indian army, told him: “‘I’m going to beat you in a race.’ But he never beat me. He ran [as if] to beat me, but he knew I was trying my best, so he stayed behind. I said to him: ‘Dad, you can win, why did you do that?’ He said: ‘If I discourage you, you will never enjoy it.’ He picked me up, gave me a nice cuddle, that I never forget.” Continue reading...
Now 30 years old, the Black Album has sold more than 30m copies. The band discuss its legacy, fighting in the studio – and making an all-star cover versionBy the end of the 80s, it seemed certain that Metallica would be the biggest metal band in the world. Their 1988 album, … And Justice for All, had been in the US chart for a year and a half. Their first music video, One, had finally earned them MTV airplay, blasting their intricately crafted savagery through every TV set in the US. Their Damaged Justice tour had packed arenas across the US and Europe.They seized their moment with the Black Album, as their self-titled next LP became known. Released 30 years ago this month, no metal album since has matched its impact; every parameter was reset for what such belligerent music could achieve. It went 16 times platinum in the US and has spent 622 weeks (and counting) in the US album chart. Its third single, the swelling Nothing Else Matters, passed 1bn YouTube views last month. The band are commemorating the record’s 30th anniversary by releasing a 52-track covers album, The Metallica Blacklist, with stars as giant and eclectic as Miley Cyrus, Elton John, Phoebe Bridgers and Biffy Clyro giving their takes on the album’s tracks. Continue reading...
Numbers are ‘encouraging’ but New Zealanders ‘must continue to be vigilant’, Grant Robertson saysNew Zealand has reported 28 new cases of coronavirus in the community, a drop of 21 compared with the previous day in an “encouraging” sign that the country’s lockdown is working, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson says.One of the new cases was in Wellington while the remainder were in Auckland, which remains under a stricter lockdown compared to the rest of the country. The total number of people infected in the outbreak is now at 764. Continue reading...
by Sarah Martin Chief political correspondent on (#5P3QN)
Survey of specialists forms part of Brendan Murphy’s brief to national cabinet on the ability of the health system to cope with rising Covid casesIntensive care doctors have warned that Australia’s health system could face months of surge demand that will strain the workforce as a result of the Delta outbreak, as they stress the need for an increase in Covid vaccination rates to ease the burden on hospitals.The federal health secretary, Brendan Murphy, will update Friday’s meeting of national cabinet about the hospital system’s ability to cope, informed by a survey from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (Anzics), after the Australian Medical Association warned that the system was already struggling. Continue reading...
by Presented by Gabrielle Jackson with Lenore Taylor on (#5P3G6)
In Australia, imports of the drug ivermectin have increased tenfold. The relatively obscure drug, primarily used to deworm animals, is being touted as a cure for Covid. But this week a Covid-positive man presented to Sydney’s Westmead hospital suffering not from the effects of Covid, but an overdose of a combination of ivermectin and other so-called cures he’d found online. Lenore Taylor and Mike Ticher speak to Gabrielle Jackson about reporting on misinformation and the anti-vax movement in AustraliaRead more: Continue reading...
Classical composer famed for his film scores to Zorba the Greek and Serpico, and for his firebrand politicsFor those with only a nodding acquaintance with Greece and Greek music, the name of Mikis Theodorakis, who has died aged 96, still conjures up Zorba the Greek and that moment on a Cretan beach when Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates break into an ecstatic dance. It was often hard for the classically trained composer to live down his image as a writer of memorable film scores. Despite the performance of his operas, symphonies and songs in some of the major concert halls of Europe, Theodorakis remained, for many, the man who wrote the catchy bouzouki music of Zorba and the Costa-Gavras film Z.For those who remember the 1967-74 military dictatorship in Greece, he was also a symbol of resistance to that regime. But Theodorakis was much more than a political symbol and a writer of film scores. He was a composer of great melodic gifts: he composed more songs than Schubert and the best of them – his settings of Lorca, Seferis, Brendan Behan, Kambanellis, Elytis and Ritsos – do not suffer by the comparison. It may be that his other works will one day occupy a place in the repertoire of 20th-century classical composition, but his songs will undoubtedly remain the most enduring legacy of the man known to his friends simply as o psilos – the tall one. Continue reading...
Josep Borrell believes moment has come for expeditionary force but idea faces opposition from EU membersThe US withdrawal from Afghanistan will “catalyse” the EU to establish its own permanent military force, the union’s foreign policy chief has said, despite years of fruitless debate and opposition from member states.After a meeting of EU defence ministers, Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said the moment had come to establish an active EU expeditionary force, described by some senior European politicians as an army. Continue reading...
IICSA report finds victim blaming, abuse of power and mistrust of authority to be commonplaceChildren involved in religious organisations, including Sunday schools and madrasas, are vulnerable to sexual abuse in cultures where victim blaming, abuse of power and mistrust of external authorities are common, a report says.The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said there was “no doubt that the sexual abuse of children takes place in a broad range of religious settings”. It found evidence of “egregious failings” and highlighted the hypocrisy of religions that purport to teach right from wrong, yet fail to protect children. Continue reading...
Family praises brothers who stopped seven-year-old from drowning, after using Facebook to track them downA woman has spoken of her gratitude after she managed to track down the two men who saved her son from drowning.When seven-year-old Frankie Creek fell off a jetty at Caldecotte Lake in Milton Keynes one evening last month, his mother, Natasha, was too distracted by their barking dogs to hear the splash. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5P2S4)
Broadcasters ordered not to promote ‘sissy’ men in attempt to reshape country’s entertainment industryChina has banned reality talent shows and ordered broadcasters not to promote “sissy” men, in the latest attempt to reshape the culture of the country’s huge entertainment industry that authorities believe is leading young Chinese people astray.“Broadcast and TV institutions must not screen idol development programmes or variety shows and reality shows that feature the children of celebrities,” China’s broadcast regulator, the National Radio and Television Administration said, in new regulations announced on Thursday. Continue reading...
Reports in state media give rare details of allegations against Michael Spavor and his compatriot Michael KovrigChinese state media have accused the jailed Canadian Michael Spavor of supplying photographs of military equipment to Michael Kovrig in repeated acts of espionage, offering rare details of the allegations against the two men.The two men were arrested in December 2018, just days after Canadian officials arrested the Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou. Last month Spavor, who lived in China and arranged tours to North Korea, was sentenced to 11 years in prison and deportation from China. Kovrig, a former diplomat turned analyst for the International Crisis Group, was also tried in secret in March. Kovrig is yet to have his verdict or sentence announced. Continue reading...
With the release of a new album – Certified Lover Boy – we pick the best tracks from the Canadian rapper and global superstar’s hit-studded careerBorne aloft on a blaze of horns and flanked by three all-time greats, this was Drake’s entry to rap’s big leagues: “Last name ever / first name greatest”, is how he opens his verse. It’s a rather corny boast and gets cornier still – punchlines like “at the club you know I balled: chemo” could be included in Christmas crackers, were they not deeply insensitive. But his cockiness connects, and the chorus hook is memorably strong. Continue reading...
by Nino Bucci (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier) on (#5P222)
9.31am BSTA Victorian ban on Nazi symbols will come into effect next year, and outlaws the display of swastikas and other hate symbols.Related: Victoria first Australian state to ban public display of Nazi symbols9.17am BSTThe Productivity Commission has found Australia’s national water plan needs a greater focus on the impact of climate change and more input from Indigenous people, AAP reports.The commission on Thursday released its final report of a review into the national water initiative (NWI), a federal-state reform agreement that began in 2004.
The company has been shamed by health regulators, lost revenue and is the center of hundreds of US lawsuits. Now it has thrown in a last-ditch effort to continue salesMore than a decade ago, Adam Bowen and James Monsees became friends over their smoke breaks at Stanford University. They were graduate students when they first conceived of the idea behind Juul: conventional cigarettes, like the ones they couldn’t stop smoking, were bad not because of nicotine, but for all the other chemicals from burnt tar.The pair had a vision: design a device that would deliver solely nicotine, offer a better experience for smokers and help those who wanted to quit cigarettes. Continue reading...
Not many birds can compare to the vocal range of the Australian lyrebird, and Taronga Zoo's lyrebird, Echo, is no exception. The zoo says Echo has the ability to replicate a variety of calls, but its perfect impersonation of a crying baby is perhaps not the pleasant day at the zoo parents would be hoping for► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant have led to closures in some countries, while others push to keep classrooms openAs countries across Asia battle worsening Covid outbreaks, schools face particular challenges in keeping children and teachers safe. Some countries – determined that classrooms stay open – are relying on measures like masks, smaller groups and even bans on talking in class to limit infections. In others, schools remain shut.Here’s a look at what countries around Asia and the region are doing to prevent Covid spread in schools: Continue reading...
by Nadeem Badshah (now), Clea Skopeliti, Alexandra To on (#5P0TZ)
UK figures come after bank holiday weekend where there is usually a lag in case reporting; nationwide booster campaign to begin in French care homes on 12 September
Critics denounce law as unconstitutional and a threat to women’s healthTop Democrats across the country are condemning the US supreme court over its silence on Texas’s latest and most extreme abortion law to date after it came into effect on Wednesday.The so-called “Heartbeat Act”, which was signed into law by Greg Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, in May, bans abortions at six weeks and does not make exceptions for incest and rape. Furthermore, it empowers private citizens to sue any abortion provider who violates the law. Continue reading...
by Presented by Laura Murphy-Oates and reported by El on (#5P1QR)
As NSW’s Delta outbreak worsens, some of its largest hospitals are facing a crisis, with some health workers warning major changes are needed to avoid compromising patient care before Covid case numbers reach their expected peak in October.Reporter Elias Visontay tells Laura Murphy-Oates what patients, nurses and doctors are seeing inside hospitalsYou can also read: Continue reading...
Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz open the festival with a boisterous, warm-bodied swapped-at-birth melodrama about two single women who meet in a maternity wardThe first day of the Venice film festival is an excitable, expectant affair. The staff wear medical masks, the cinemas have been sanitised and the guests mass at the door like anxious family members outside a maternity ward. Happily they are in good hands; Pedro Almodóvar is the midwife. He delivers an opening night picture that is positively ringing with life.Showcasing a sure-footed performance from Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers shapes up as a boisterous swapped-at-birth melodrama, full of mix-ups and moral quandaries, occasionally tilting towards farce. But first appearances are deceptive and the film belies its high-concept conceit. All newborns, we’re told, carry the ghosts of the past in their genes – and so it is with Almodóvar’s latest, which is knotted and subversive; an autopsy of dark Spanish history dressed up as a bright baby shower. It’s a turbulent movie. The ingredients don’t always gel. But it is so generous of spirit that it would be churlish to complain. Most directors give so little. Almodóvar, by contrast, offers an over-abundance of riches. Continue reading...
Analysis: Insurgents’ cooperation is needed for evacuations, but PM could face criticism for engaging with themBoris Johnson’s decision to dispatch a senior spy chief to talk directly to the Taliban in Qatar reflects an uncomfortable but necessary reality: the UK has little option but to engage with the insurgent group now in control of Afghanistan.Thousands of Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK are believed to remain trapped in the country – UK ministers refuse to say how many – and hundreds of British nationals. With western troops withdrawn, it is only with Taliban cooperation that people will be able to leave safely and smoothly. Continue reading...
Two cops are stranded in hostile territory when an act of police brutality triggers a riot in this slick action filmDenmark’s reputation as the land of tolerance, equality and cosy contentment takes a battering in this superslick urban thriller directed with adrenaline and savvy by first timers Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm. “Shorta” is Arabic for “police”, and the movie opens with black teenager Talib Ben Hassi lying face down, a white police officer on his back. “I can’t breathe,” he pleads. We don’t see Talib again but his name is repeated over and over: on the streets in Svalegårdena, the fictional estate where he grew up; by TV journalists reporting on his condition in intensive care; at the police station where damage limitation is in overdrive.Officers are warned to stay out of Svalegårdena – a powder keg waiting to explode. The shift commander puts solidly decent Jens (Simon Sears) in a car with repellent racist Mike (Jacob Hauberg Lohmann), a man who demands respect by bullying and intimidation. The script sets up these familiar cop stereotypes then messes with them – not massively convincingly to be honest. Jens in particular I found difficult to get a handle on; this is a film where characters act in ways to make the plot tick more than anything else. Things go wrong when Mike stops and searches cheeky Arab kid Amos (Tarek Zayat). He goes in hard, humiliates Amos, arrests him; at that moment news breaks that Talib is dead, triggering a riot. Continue reading...
Outgoing leader wades into election fray as Olaf Scholz says his party is more likely to uphold Merkel’s legacyAngela Merkel has waded into the fray of Germany’s election campaign by dismissing her centre-left vice-chancellor’s attempt to model himself as her continuity candidate, as her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tries to revive its flagging fortunes with warnings of “chaos” under a leftwing coalition government.The intervention comes as the Social Democratic party (SPD) candidate for chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Merkel’s deputy in her fourth and final cabinet, is doing an increasingly effective job of convincing voters he is more likely to continue the chancellor’s centrist and rational legacy than the candidate representing her own party. Continue reading...
On 8 September 1991, Russia’s second city reverted to its pre-revolutionary name of St Petersburg – the 50th anniversary of the start of the siege by Germany in the second world warBy John Rettie in Leningrad
Alexanda Amon Kotey is accused of conspiring to torture and behead US and European hostages in SyriaOne of two British-born men charged in the US with joining Islamic State and conspiring to torture and behead American and European hostages in Syria is scheduled to plead guilty to criminal charges.Court records show a change of plea hearing has been scheduled for Thursday in a district court in Alexandria, Virginia, for Alexanda Amon Kotey, one of four IS members who were nicknamed “the Beatles” by their captives because of their British accents. Continue reading...
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