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Referred to as ‘the greatest artist you’ve never heard of’, Bill Traylor’s compelling life is put under the spotlight in a new documentaryBill Traylor had already lived a full life before he was born as an artist. Enslaved at birth on an Alabama cotton plantation in 1853 and having spent his entire life as a farmer within a 40-mile radius of Montgomery, it was only in his late 80s that he, homeless and alone, parked himself by a bustling intersection in the state capitol’s segregated black neighborhood and began to draw and paint.Related: In the Absence of Light: celebrating the history of black artists in America Continue reading...

Decision to send medics into active terror zone was unprecedented, says doctorThe first of the medics and police to respond to the Fishmongers’ Hall terrorist attack have described the scene that confronted them as they rushed to try to save the people who had been injured, while keeping their colleagues and the public safe from a suspected bomb attack.Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, were both killed in the knife attack by the convicted terrorist Usman Khan on 29 November 2019. Continue reading...

Axing of four subjects in 2021 a ‘crisis’ that will disadvantage businesses in the future, says president of Asian Studies Association of AustraliaAustralian universities are failing students and leaving them unprepared for the future job market by cutting courses in Asian languages, according to teachers and experts.Four university-level Asian language subjects have been cut in 2021 as universities cope with the ongoing economic impact of the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...

Brothers will be separated by cousin Peter Phillips as they walk behind coffin, Buckingham Palace revealsThe Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex will walk apart for their grandfather’s funeral, which is likely to see the Queen sitting alone, details released by Buckingham Palace reveal.Prince William and Prince Harry, whose troubled relationship was further strained after the Sussexes’ controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey, will be separated by their cousin Peter Phillips as they walk behind the coffin of the Duke of Edinburgh on Saturday. Continue reading...

Third of DRC population faces acute food insecurity and suggested 60% aid reduction would be catastropheA consortium of 19 aid agencies operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued a last-minute appeal to the UK Foreign Office to suspend planned aid cuts to the country, where a third of the population faces acute food insecurity.The Foreign Office, the second largest provider of aid to the war-torn country, has told aid agencies that cuts are very likely. Although the size is not yet agreed, one report has suggested a 60% reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget for the country. The FCDO’s aid programme for Congo was worth £180m in 2019. Continue reading...

Celebration of the fashion house’s 100th anniversary offers a postmodern take on brandingFrom high street to catwalk, collaboration is a mainstay of fashion now. But Gucci’s show on Thursday afternoon – one that celebrated the brand’s 100th anniversary – stepped the idea up a gear.The creative director Alessandro Michele worked with the designs of one of his biggest rivals for influence – Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia. The resulting items featured the Balenciaga logo and Gucci monogram and looked like very expensive bootlegs. They had exactly the kind of postmodern take on branding that gets a lot of play in the Instagram era. Continue reading...

Vladyslav Dryhval, 46, was arrested on Tuesday after being seen by a member of the publicA man has been charged after allegedly wielding an axe near Buckingham Palace.Private security guards working on the Mall were alerted by a member of the public to a man apparently carrying an axe at about 6.30pm on Tuesday. They challenged and detained the man, who was then arrested by armed Metropolitan police officers on patrol nearby. Continue reading...

The medical NGO says government negligence is costing lives as death toll exceeds 362,000, second only to USThe Brazilian government’s negligent response to Covid-19 has plunged the South American country into a snowballing “humanitarian catastrophe” that is likely to intensify in the coming weeks, the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières has warned.“I have to be very clear in this: the Brazilian authorities’ negligence is costing lives,” the group’s international president, Christos Christou, told reporters on Thursday after Brazil’s official death toll rose to more than 362,000, second only to the US. Continue reading...

As the singer announces she’s selling memorabilia including a wedding dress and tour outfits, we assess her greatest worksA career curio, 2008’s Discipline album was mainly notable for what it lacked, with no songwriting input from Janet Jackson and no songs written with longterm collaborators producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Still, its Darkchild-produced lead single is a metallic-sounding, electropop-leaning behemoth built around the uncompromising lyric, “heavy like a first day period”. Continue reading...

Impact of Covid pandemic is revealed with nearly 388,000 waiting more than a year to start treatment

Crown prince warned of damage to Saudi-UK relations if Premier League refusal not ‘corrected’The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, warned Boris Johnson in a text message that UK-Saudi Arabian relations would be damaged if the British government did not intervene to “correct” the Premier League’s “wrong” decision not to allow a £300m takeover of Newcastle United last year.Johnson asked Edward Lister, his special envoy for the Gulf, to take up the issue, and Lord Lister reportedly told the prime minister: “I’m on the case. I will investigate.” Continue reading...

The actor and comedian discusses his early days in musical theatre, his love of U2 and his passion for fly fishingThe first album I bought was Glass Houses by Billy Joel. Then I went to the record store with my dad and he bought Jesus Christ Superstar and I bought the soundtrack to Patton by Jerry Goldsmith. My first concert is kind of embarrassing: Hall & Oates in Minneapolis. I was a late bloomer to concerts. My wife went to AC/DC when she was, like, three. Now I’m like: “If it’s live, I’ll go, period.” But when I was young, it was like: “We’re going downtown? Ah, man.” Continue reading...

Members of fashion dynasty hit out at roles played by Al Pacino and Jared Leto in House of GucciThe Gucci family has hit out against the “horrible, horrible” and “ugly” casting of the House of Gucci film, starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver.The film, which is now in production and directed by Sir Ridley Scott, tells the story of Patrizia Reggiani and her doomed marriage to Maurizio Gucci. Reggiani was convicted of his assassination in 1998 after hiring a hitman to kill him. Continue reading...

Australia’s medicines regulator is examining the 48-year-old’s death but experts suggest it would be unusual if the vaccine was responsibleAustralia’s medicines regulator and the NSW health department are investigating the death of a 48-year-old diabetic woman who developed blood clots after receiving a coronavirus vaccine.The woman, from Lake Macquarie on the NSW Central Coast, received the vaccine last Friday and developed blood clots the next day before being placed on dialysis. She died on Wednesday. Continue reading...

As Britain cuts aid to war-torn country on brink of famine Muslim charities are directing donations towards feeding population

From getting chores done to missing colleagues, readers reveal the highs and lows of remote working

‘Sophisticated cyber-criminals’ took Valeria Luiselli’s winnings, though a similar fraud attempt on the Baillie Gifford prize was foiled

Swapping missing ingredients and spare custard tarts over the garden wall made difficult times a little easier to live withTrue neighbourliness is a single onion sitting on a garden wall. It’s a nub end of ginger or a roll of greaseproof paper. Over the past year, all of these things and more besides have loitered on the old brick wall that separates our garden from that of our lovely neighbours, Marc and Elvira. The pandemic has written many narratives around food: there have been community projects to make meals for those in need, and schemes to keep frontline healthcare workers fed during long shifts. But alongside the big arching themes are the more intimate stories of people simply finding ways to bring moments of joy into the flatline of lockdown. When I eventually look back at it all I know it will be the story of our garden wall, and the part it played in how we ate, that will make me smile the most.Before Covid-19 we would, of course, knock occasionally on each other’s doors and ask to borrow a missing ingredient. We discovered shortly after they moved in a few years ago that our new neighbours were as up for a cooking project as we were. Marc once showed me a picture of a suckling pig on his phone, like he’d been offered a hot motor, and asked me if I fancied going halves. He’s that sort of man. (His name suggests he might be French, doesn’t it? He isn’t. He’s from Torquay.) Marc and Elvira could always be relied upon to have what we did not and vice vera. Plus, we were all impeccable neighbours. We replaced whatever we had borrowed. Have a couple of onions back. Here’s your lemon. Continue reading...

Reports woman received vaccine on Friday and developed clots the next day; NSW MPs call for end to police investigating themselves on 30th anniversary of royal commission; Queensland eases Covid restrictions. Follow updates live

By minting new versions of her albums amid an industry dispute, Swift has moved on from the originals. Can fans with profound connections to them do the same?In early April, Rebs Fisher-Jackson, a 23-year-old, self-identifying Swiftie – the collective name for fans of the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift – listened to her album Fearless for the final time. “I made my peace with it,” she says with the air of a mourner.Rebs was one of millions of fans saying goodbye to a once-beloved album, Swift’s second, originally released in 2008. On message boards, they posted infographics about how to hide Fearless’s tracks on Spotify and shared how to illegally download the album. To an outsider, it may have looked like Swifties, one of the largest and most devoted fanbases in pop, had turned against the singer, but they were actually rallying around her as she made the boldest business manoeuvre of her career. Continue reading...

Decision to overturn state law deals blow to campaigners’ hopes of keeping city affordableGermany’s highest court has ruled that a rent cap imposed by the Berlin state government is illegal, dealing a huge blow to those who have campaigned to keep the city affordable.The constitutional court in Karlsruhe overturned the law on Thursday, saying lawmakers in the state had no right to instigate the law, one of the most controversial and debated pieces of legislation in recent years. Continue reading...

‘If you can smell your friend’s lunch’ it is too close, says Julian Tang as he proposes ‘space, space, hands’ message

Scientists fear erosion of efficacy of treatment has begun, with children at greatest riskResistance to malaria drugs in Africa may be starting to take hold, according to a study that maps changes similar to those seen a decade ago when drug resistance spread in south-east Asia.In Cambodia and neighbouring countries, the artemisinin drug compounds widely used against malaria are no longer always effective. The falciparum malaria parasites have developed genetic mutations that allow them to evade the drugs. There has been great concern that drug resistance could spread to Africa, which has the highest burden of cases of this type of malaria – and the highest toll of child deaths from it. Continue reading...

Demanding bosses, impossible workloads, 24/7 email – no wonder many employees feel they have no time outside work to find love

PM accused of giving ‘carte blanche to Israel’ by saying court had no right to examine alleged war crimesPalestine has said relations with Britain have reached a “low point” after Boris Johnson announced that he opposed an international criminal court investigation into alleged war crimes in the Israeli-occupied territories.The prime minister’s comments, made in a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group in the UK, said that while his government had “respect [for] the independence” of the court, it opposed this particular inquiry into Israel. Continue reading...

Chris Bowen says Coalition’s failure to cut emissions could cost 500,000 jobs in Queensland but ‘there is a different path’The opposition climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has warned almost one million Australians will lose their jobs if runaway climate change decimates the environment and the economy – with Queensland bearing the brunt of any failure to act.Bowen used a speech in Brisbane on Thursday night to warn Queenslanders they would pay the price for the federal Coalition’s failure to act in accordance with climate science, with half a million jobs lost in the state and a forecast economic contraction of 8% by 2050 and 14% by 2070. Continue reading...

Democracy and liberal norms are ‘under assault’, the Australian prime minister tells the Raisina Dialogue in New DelhiThe world is at risk of “a great polarisation” between autocracies and democracies, Scott Morrison has declared, while also appearing to take aim at China for using “economic coercion” as “a tool of statecraft”.The Australian prime minister told an audience in India on Thursday that liberal rules and norms were “under assault”, tensions over territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region were growing, and militaries were being modernised “at an unprecedented rate”. Continue reading...

David Cameron’s spokesperson says former PM would respond ‘positively’ to any request to give evidence

Duke of Sussex faced being the only senior male royal not in uniform, despite serving in Afghanistan

Adelaida Sánchez is a member of the community police force in Cherán, a Purépecha indigenous town in Michoacán, Mexico, which declared itself autonomous in 2011. When the town was under siege from illegal logging, cartel criminals, and corrupt authorities and the men of the town stood by and did nothing, it was left to women to lead the fightback. On the tenth anniversary of the uprising, Adelaida patrols the town and its forests, providing an oasis amidst the murder, kidnap and extortion across the statePhotograph credit: Andrea Murcia Continue reading...

Proposals follow Kenyan government’s ultimatum to UN refugee agency to close Dadaab and Kakuma campsThe UN refugee agency has given the Kenyan government “sustainable and rights-based” proposals for the closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.The response follows a 14-day ultimatum issued by the Kenyan government for the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) to come up with a plan for closing the two camps, which are home to some 430,000 refugees and asylum seekers from more than 15 countries. Continue reading...

Toshihiro Nikai’s comments are at odds with the united front presented by the Japanese governmentA senior member of Japan’s ruling party has said that cancelling the Tokyo Olympics “remains an option” if the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen.“If it seems impossible to do it any more, then we have to stop, decisively,” Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic party, said in a TV interview that has yet to be aired. Continue reading...

The Hollywood star and Italian veteran Toni Servillo attempt to solve a mysterious abduction – a race hampered by never appearing in the same sceneA face-off between Hollywood legend Dustin Hoffman and Toni Servillo, that veteran of contemporary Italian classics by Paolo Sorrentino? Sounds good. But sadly, the two never appear together in the same scene, and the film they appear in is frustratingly underpowered and derivative.Into the Labyrinth is a psychological horror-thriller directed by Donato Carrisi and adapted by him from his own bestselling novel L’uomo del labirinto. The setting is Italy, and a distraught young woman (Valentina Bellè) comes round from sedation in a private hospital room where a calm and mysterious doctor called Green (Hoffman) explains that she had been found, dumped unconscious by the side of the road, apparently by the sinister individual who kidnapped her as a teenager 15 years earlier – a sensational unsolved “cold case”. As a forensic profiler working with the police, he will now ask questions to reconstruct her terrifying existence in the prison which her abductor called the “labyrinth”. Continue reading...

Kindergartens given specially themed puzzles and others taught to ‘safeguard homeland’ on National Security Education dayHong Kong school students as young as three have been given national-security themed puzzles as part of activities to mark the city’s “celebrations” of a new legal code widely condemned by the international community.In a much expanded roster of events for the city’s National Security Education day, schools were given teaching material on how to “uphold national security, safeguard our homeland”. Continue reading...

Doctors say ‘absurd’ move, made as second wave surges, is unfair on non-Covid patients

Yoshihide Suga will travel to meet Joe Biden amid growing international condemnation of Beijing’s human rights abusesChina is expected to dominate talks between Joe Biden and the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, in Washington on Friday amid growing international condemnation of Beijing’s military exercises near Taiwan and human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.Suga will become the first world leader to meet Biden since his inauguration in January, a repeat of Shinzo Abe’s meeting with the then president-elect, Donald Trump, in late 2016. Continue reading...

In 2019, the body of a man fell from a passenger plane into a garden in south London. Who was he?

The actor grew up on film sets, rubbing shoulders with the biggest stars on earth. Now he’s stepping into his father John’s shoes again – to direct a film about grief, secrets and the Lockerbie bombingWith his father, the legendary director John Huston, it was that gravelly voice that you noticed first. With his sister, Anjelica Huston, it is her magnificent nose. And with his nephew, actor Jack Huston, it’s the moustache. But with actor-director Danny Huston, it is, unarguably, the eyebrows: those great looping Ls that waggle away as you chat with him, as if they were having their own separate conversation with you. People often talk about his resemblance to his father, but, I tell him, the celebrity he always looked most like to me is Jack Nicholson, thanks to those brows.“Yes, Jack defined these eyebrows before I was able to grow into mine,” he grins, bearish in size and wolfish in smile. Isn’t it a little weird for his sister Anjelica that her baby brother looks so much like her ex-boyfriend? “Hmmm, I know what you mean. Well, I think that only enabled her to have greater affection towards both of us – ha!” Continue reading...

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Dreams of careers and family life have been replaced with death and injury in the wake of the 1 February coupFor Myanmar’s young people, 2021 was supposed to be a year for optimism. After seeing through the Covid-19 pandemic, the rollout of the vaccine had begun and general elections in November had marked a step towards the country realising its potential.But in the wake of the 1 February coup, their dreams have turned into nightmares, as many of Myanmar’s young people have found themselves forced to sacrifice their futures to take a stand against the military. Continue reading...

The Australian defence force’s latest scandal involves a twerk dance in hotpants in front of the HMAS Supply – and an upset Liberal MP

Australian gunman earlier said he wanted to start legal action over his designation as a terrorist and lack of access to news and lettersThe Christchurch terrorist who said he wanted to take the government to court over a lack of access to news and letters in jail and his designation as a terrorist entity has failed to attend the first court hearing on the matter.The hearing in Auckland, New Zealand, was indefinitely postponed and the terrorist must ask to have it rescheduled after his no show on Thursday. Continue reading...

CDC advisers say they need more evidence to decide if cases of unusual blood clots were linked to the Covid vaccineJohnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine will remain in limbo a while longer after US health advisers told the government Wednesday that they need more evidence to decide if a handful of unusual blood clots were linked to the shot – and if so, how big the potential risk really is.The reports are exceedingly rare – six cases out of more than 7m US inoculations with the one-dose vaccine. But the government recommended a pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations this week, not long after European regulators declared that such clots are a rare but possible risk with the AstraZeneca vaccine, a shot made in a similar way but not yet approved for use in the US. Continue reading...

New report points finger at nation’s penny-pinching policies and failure to act on scientific advice

France will use Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine despite its suspension in US while Sweden said it would await the findings the EMA

Thursday: Leading climatologist says Coalition policies do not address crisis and the US won’t be fooled. Plus: what Australia can learn from other countries’ vaccine rolloutsGood morning. Australia could be in for a frosty reception at global warming talks, a police shooting fans tensions in Minneapolis once again and Indigenous families call for justice, 30 years after the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. All that, and more, in today’s morning mail.One of the world’s leading climate scientists has accused the Australian government’s approach to emission reductions of being “smoke and mirrors”, cautioning that the Biden administration would not be “fooled” by rhetoric designed to mask a “clear record of inaction”. Michael E Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science, also said “renewed American leadership” on the crisis would increase scrutiny on Australia, as Scott Morrison prepares for a virtual climate summit next week at US President Joe Biden’s invitation. A major report suggests Australia would need to triple its 2030 emissions reduction target and achieve net-zero emissions by 2035 to help prevent temperature rises above 2C. Meanwhile, WWF Australia has announced it will help fund community legal challenges against development decisions that involve forest clearing. Continue reading...

Journalist and author was jailed after writing pieces critical of president Recep Tayyip ErdoğanA Turkish court has released the journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan after more than four years in prison on charges of involvement in a failed 2016 coup attempt, charges he had always denied.The court of cassation ruling came a day after the European court of human rights (ECHR) demanded the 71-year-old’s freedom in a verdict that accused Turkey of violating his civil rights. Continue reading...

The hit French comedy about a celebrity talent agency is making a surprise return after its fourth season was scheduled to be its lastThe acclaimed French comedy Call My Agent is set to return for a fifth season as well as a film.The news comes as a surprise after its recent fourth season was expected to be the last. The announcement was made by Thomas Anargyros, chief executive of Mediawan Studios, the company behind the series, on French radio station Europe 1. Continue reading...