King Abdullah’s half-brother says he will disobey the army’s orders not to communicate with outside worldJordan’s estranged Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has said in a voice recording that he will disobey orders by the army not to communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest.The half-brother of King Abdullah and the former heir to the throne said in the recording released on Monday by the country’s opposition that he would not comply after being barred from any activities and told to keep quiet. Continue reading...
Singer also generates $2.2m in sales of NFTs, including one linked to an unreleased song sold for $490,000Pop singer the Weeknd has donated $1m (£722,000) in food aid to Ethiopia, amid the ongoing conflict in the country’s Tigray region.“My heart breaks for my people of Ethiopia as innocent civilians ranging from small children to the elderly are being senselessly murdered and entire villages are being displaced out of fear and destruction,” he wrote on Instagram. “I will be donating $1 million to provide 2 million meals through the United Nations World Food Program and encourage those who can to please give as well.” Continue reading...
Whether it is Vera Brittain or Elena Ferrante, women’s relationships have provided succour in troubled times, writes Lucy JagoWhat I miss most about pre-lockdown life is not festivals, or even foreign travel, but time with my female friends. The malaise, I believe, is widespread, so here are some books in which to immerse yourself in complex, occasionally wounding, but always irreplaceable female friendships.In Sula, by Toni Morrison, Nel and Sula are best friends in a poor, black Ohio community, where women can take many roles but not that which Sula chooses, free from social and sexual restraint. She is shunned by everyone, even Nel, whose marriage crumbles in the face of Sula’s seductive presence. Nel mourns for years but comes to understand, as Sula does before her, that it was not her husband she was missing but the relationship with her best friend. Morrison says that it was the women around her, all struggling, all poor, who inspired the book. “The things we traded! Time, food, money, clothes, laughter, memory – and daring. Daring especially …” Continue reading...
Dukes, earls and marquesses, some of them owners of inherited estates, have drawn on public fundsDozens of members of Britain’s land-owning aristocracy have claimed under the taxpayer-funded furlough scheme to pay staff at their ancestral estates and personal businesses.Analysis of publicly available data reveals the names of at least 50 nobles, including dukes, earls, viscounts, barons and marquesses, who have drawn on public funds. Continue reading...
Percentage of churchgoing Americans is steadily falling, and the swirl of rightwing politics and Christianity is playing a key roleFewer than half of Americans belong to a house of worship, a new study shows, but religion – and Christianity in particular – continues to have an outsize influence in US politics, especially because it is declining faster among Democrats than Republicans.Just 47% of the US population are members of a church, mosque or synagogue, according to a survey by Gallup, down from 70% two decades ago – in part a result of millennials turning away from religion but also, experts say, a reaction to the swirling mix of rightwing politics and Christianity pursued by the Republican party. Continue reading...
At least eight people were on the vessel north of Sydney when it caught fire on Sunday afternoonA woman is fighting for her life after suffering critical burns in a boat explosion on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney.Eight people suffered burns and smoke inhalation in the explosion at Brooklyn near Dangar Island on Sunday afternoon. Continue reading...
Government hopes to jumpstart tourism with mass inoculation programIn Thailand, it’s the all-important tourism sector that has jumped to the head of the Covid-19 vaccination line, with the country’s most popular resort island embarking on a mass inoculation programme two months ahead of the rest of Thailand.The island of Phuket aims to deliver shots to at least 460,000 people – the majority of its population – as it gears up for 1 July, when vaccinated overseas visitors will no longer be required to quarantine. Continue reading...
Petrol bombs thrown at officers in loyalist areas in Newtownabbey and CarrickfergusPolice have come under attack as violence flared during another night of sporadic disorder in parts of Northern Ireland.Petrol bombs and bricks were thrown at officers in loyalist areas in Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus on Sunday night. Continue reading...
Victorian premier says he’s making ‘steady progress’ after a ‘pretty painful’ few weeksDaniel Andrews says he’s making steady progress in his recovery from a serious back injury and is now walking about 18 minutes a day.Victoria’s premier suffered broken ribs and a fractured T7 vertebra after slipping on wet stairs at a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula on 9 March. Continue reading...
New Zealand may have moved to curb rising prices but could cheap money have permanently rewritten the rules?It’s hard to disagree with the New Zealand government’s recent assessment that the country’s runaway housing market has moved from mere boom to a bubble that endangers the whole economy. Prices rose a staggering 23% over the past year, putting home ownership way beyond most people not already on the fabled ladder – younger, first-time buyers especially. If it walks like a bubble and talks like a bubble, then it must be a bubble, right?The only problem is that bubbles might not be what they used to be. House prices are being steadily inflated in many other developed economies such as the US and UK. In Australia, prices rose 2.8% in March, the fastest monthly growth for 33 years. But governments are in no hurry to copy Jacinda Ardern’s canary in the coalmine moment, as the renowned Société Générale economist and market sceptic Albert Edwards has dubbed it, and instruct central banks to make dampening prices part of monetary policy. Continue reading...
Family had been told they could not remain together in UK as father travelled by plane, sons by boatA family of asylum seekers from Yemen who were told they could not remain together in the UK because the father travelled to the country by plane and his three sons arrived by small boat have been told their case will be considered together after a Home Office U-turn.The government change of heart emerged days after an announcement from the home secretary that how people enter the UK would have a bearing on the progress of their asylum claim. Priti Patel said asylum seekers should stay in the first safe country they arrive in rather than travelling onwards to the UK. Continue reading...
Great-grandmother Lucille Downer, 85, died after ‘sustained’ attack by two dogs from neighbouring propertyA woman killed in a “sustained” dog attack in her garden after two dogs escaped from a neighbouring property through a hole in the fence has been named as 85-year-old great-grandmother Lucille Downer.Downer’s family paid tribute to her, saying they would “miss her dearly”. Continue reading...
Canal authority says investigation into the cause of Ever Given grounding is nearing completionThe last ships stranded by the grounding of a giant container vessel in the Suez canal passed through the waterway on Saturday, according to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).More than 400 vessels were stranded in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea when the giant container ship Ever Given became wedged across the vital waterway on 23 March. The ship was freed on Monday. Continue reading...
The singer, 80, on enthusiastic audiences, singing Sex Bomb at 90, meeting a young Michael Jackson and losing the love of his lifeI’ve been singing since I was a kid growing up in Pontypridd in South Wales. I would sing in school. I would sing in chapel. Any chance I got to get up and sing, I took it.I was quarantined for two years with tuberculosis. I was in hospital or confined to my house from 1952 to 1954, from the age of 12 to 14. There was an old gas lamp-post at the end of the street I could see out of the window from our house where the local kids used to gather. I used to think, “When I can walk to the lamp-post again, I’ll never complain about anything as long as I live.” I still see that lamp-post in my mind and think, “What am I complaining about?” Continue reading...
Who wants to turn their excess Easter eggs into chocolate fondant, chocolate cereal clusters and chocolate and hazelnut spread? Bring it on!Can you bake with Easter egg chocolate? Sure you can. After getting my hands on a variety of Easter eggs this year (dark chocolate, caramelised white chocolate, orange-flavoured, nougat-filled mini eggs, the ones with pretzels stuck all over them … ), I found a place for them all: melted and turned into something else. For these recipes, I encourage you to use up whatever chocolate you have. Easter eggs are typically sweetened (even the dark varieties), so taste them beforehand (as I’m sure you have already) and judge if you need to add any salt, for example. Continue reading...
Most marine accidents involve human error, but the real story of how Ever Given came to block global shipping is not so easily explained awayThe trouble started at 5:17am. Ever Given, an Ultra Large Container Vessel (ULCV) loaded with 20,000 containers, had set off up the Suez canal a quarter of an hour earlier from the south, in the bay of Suez.This is how the canal works: ships anchor the night before and wait to set off early the following morning – one convoy southbound from Port Said starting at 3.30am, the northbound one at 5:00am. They meet each other at Great Bitter Lake, where the southbound convoy anchors to let the other pass. Consider a country lane with passing spots, only for ships the height of buildings, travelling at the speed of a scooter. Continue reading...
‘You are not in trouble’ and only concern is your safety, police tell missing London teenagerPolice investigating the disappearance of 19-year-old Richard Okorogheye have implored him to get in touch, saying: “Our only concern is your safety.”Okorogheye, who has sickle cell disease, has not made contact with his family since leaving his home in Ladbroke Grove, west London, on Monday 22 March at about 8.30pm. He was reported missing two days later. Continue reading...
Abigail Disney has parted with $72m – and thinks the rich need to pay far more tax. As Covid widens the inequality gap, she and an international league of the super-rich are urging governments to take their moneyAbigail Disney has always been very, very rich, or, as she describes it, “too rich”. The money came with her name: she is the granddaughter of Roy Disney who, with his brother Walt, founded the Walt Disney Company in 1923. Disney, 61, refuses to say how much she has, but acknowledges she would have been a billionaire in her own right had she not realised in her 20s that it was her fortune that was making her miserable, and decided to start giving it away.She has been donating to good causes ever since – $72m (£52m) and counting, mostly to groups helping women in prison, women living with HIV, and victims of domestic violence. But giving it away is no longer enough. She wants the tax collector to take more money, not only from her, but from “all of the absurdly rich people across the world”. Continue reading...
Reports say 550 people dead, including 46 children, and almost 3,000 detained since February coupSecurity forces in central Myanmar opened fire on anti-coup protesters on Saturday in violence that a human rights group said has left 550 civilians dead since the military takeover.Of those, 46 were children, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Some 2,751 people have been detained or sentenced, the group said. Continue reading...
The British actor shot to fame in Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon, but didn’t fit the Hollywood mould – and she’s fine with thatMinnie Driver first realised the film industry might be a strange place for a woman who didn’t fit its tiny mould when she was standing in some mud. A ditch, in fact, that had been dug for her, on a hill, so that she looked shorter than the actor she was snogging. “I was hock high in a bog, as they say in Ireland,” she says merrily, in an accent that instantly reminds me of that scene in Good Will Hunting where she tells a dirty joke and spits out her drink. This was on a different film, the first but not the last time it happened. She was young, new to the game. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is just bananas – can’t he stand on something? Or why don’t we both sit down and shoot it like that?’” But it had to be her, “in the earth, trying to be romantic and sexy when there’s mud squishing through your lace-ups”.We are talking over video chat, Driver from her family home in London, to which she has temporarily decamped after decades away in Los Angeles. She apologises for how nice she looks, the sort of apology that can only be made after a year in lockdown. “I’m only dolled up like this because I just did the photoshoot,” she explains. “And my fucking phone, the facial recognition thing wouldn’t recognise me. It was like, ‘Where’s the hag who usually opens the phone? Who’s this person?’ I often feel insulted by my own phone, but that was legendary.” Continue reading...
Anti-Asian racism is on the rise around the world. The Pulitzer-winning author reflects on his own experiences as a Vietnamese American – and the dark history that continues to fuel the current hateOn 16 March eight people were killed in Atlanta, Georgia, by a 21-year-old white man: all but one were women, and six were Asian. The shootings take their place in a much longer story of anti-Asian violence. The Covid pandemic has given us a particular insight into this phenomenon: verbal and physical assaults against Asians have accelerated in the US over the last year, with 3,800 documented incidents involving spitting, knifings, beatings, acid attacks – and murder. The majority of the victims have been women.Though the Atlanta killings took place in Asian massage parlours, the shooter has said he did not target the women because of their race. Instead, he claimed to be a sex addict bent on “removing temptation”. Regardless of his denial – whether it is a lie or self-deception – it is obvious that he targeted these women because they were Asian. “Racism and sexism intersect,” says Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociology professor. This intersection has been a driving force in western attitudes towards Asia and Asian women, who are routinely hypersexualised and objectified in popular culture. Continue reading...
Stripped of its prestige and power, this year’s awards season is the weirdest ever. But it could also mark a moment for real change when it comes to celebrating diversity
Beijing is attempting to draw attention away from reports it is holding at least one million in Xinjiang internment campsA new state-produced musical set in Xinjiang inspired by the Hollywood blockbuster “La La Land” has hit China’s cinemas, portraying a rural idyll of ethnic cohesion devoid of repression, mass surveillance and even the Islam of its majority Uyghur population.China is on an elaborate PR offensive to rebrand the north-western region where the United States and other western nationals and human rights groups say genocide has been inflicted on the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. Continue reading...
A new Chinese state-produced musical set in Xinjiang portrays a rural idyll of ethnic cohesion devoid of repression, mass surveillance and even the Muslim religion of its majority Uyghur population. The musical appears intended to culturally reframe the debate on the region. Western countries, including the US and UK, have imposed sanctions on Chinese officials they say are involved in the mass interment of up to one million Uyghur Muslims. Continue reading...
While modern indoor farms aim to recreate outdoor life minus its hazards, scientists say having a choice may be best for animals’ wellbeingIt’s springtime in the UK and hundreds of thousands of cows are being let outside for the first time since the onset of winter. Social media is full of videos of the animals joyfully jumping and galloping as they rush through farm gates into grassy fields.It’s always a great day when our Mixed Breed Herd of Dairy Cows come skipping back out into the fields! After spending the past few winter months sheltering from the cold and rain in our barn, this joyful moment signifies warmer times ahead as we move into spring.Look at them go! pic.twitter.com/xhyoSlb1yP Continue reading...
Three men and 16-year-old boy charged with more than 50 offencesThree men and a boy who allegedly drugged and raped three teenage girls in Brisbane have been charged with more than 50 offences.Queensland police launched an investigation in December, culminating in the arrests on Thursday. Continue reading...
Diplomats from three countries said they ‘shared their concerns’ about Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmesThe United States, Japan and South Korea have promised “concerted trilateral cooperation” towards the denuclearisation of North Korea.Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, held a rare in-person meeting with his counterparts from South Korea and Japan, Suh Hoon and Shigeru Kitamura, at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Continue reading...
Zampatti had been hospitalised after fall on stairs at opening night of opera La Traviata at Mrs Macquarie’s PointLegendary Australian fashion designer Carla Zampatti has died.The 78-year-old had been hospitalised after a fall on some stairs at the opening night of the opera La Traviata at Mrs Macquarie’s Point a week ago. Continue reading...
Dozens of people have died in the attacks launched by Islamic State-linked insurgentsFrench energy company Total has withdrawn all its staff from its Afungi natural gas site in northern Mozambique, sources say, as clashes between Islamic State-linked fighters and the military rage nearby.The company, which last week called off the planned resumption of construction at the $20bn development due to the violence, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Continue reading...
Mike Pompeo had imposed sanctions and refused visas after Fatou Bensouda launched investigation into alleged war crimesThe United States have lifted sanctions and a travel ban imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling for a more cooperative relationship.The former secretary of state Mike Pompeo last year imposed sanctions and refused visas for the outgoing prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, after she launched an investigation into alleged war crimes by US military personnel in Afghanistan. Continue reading...
Joe Biden has encouraged Americans to ‘buckle down’ as coronavirus cases rise but he was optimistic on the state of the economy and celebrated the latest jobs report.The US economy added 916,000 jobs last month according to the report which Biden credited to the resiliency of the American people and his administration’s new economic vision
As Covid deaths climb the president seems to be throwing the country into an abyss that will be difficult to escape fromIt is no exaggeration to say that Brazil is going through the most serious crisis in its history. With nearly 4,000 deaths a day and moving quickly towards a figure of 500,000 people killed by Covid-19, Brazil is not just the epicentre of the pandemic. It has also become the breeding ground for new variants of the virus: a real threat to its own people and the whole of humankind.In the midst of a public health war that is being lost, its president, Jair Bolsonaro, is throwing the country more deeply into an abyss, from where it will be hard to emerge. Apart from the suffering caused to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of relatives and friends of the victims, the economy has been plunged into recession, with 14% of the workforce condemned to the dole. In contrast to what happened during the first wave of the pandemic, when Congress forced the government to distribute relatively significant financial aid to a large portion of the population, now fewer people will benefit with a smaller amount. Continue reading...
by Patrick Butler Social policy editor on (#5G3SZ)
Behind the Aspinall Foundation is a history of power, riches and links to the Tory partyWhen Carrie Symonds was welcomed to her job at the wildlife conservation charity the Aspinall Foundation in January, her new boss gushed that she had arrived at an “exciting time” for the organisation. Symonds, said Damian Aspinall, would be a “huge asset to us”.Coverage of Boris Johnson’s fiancee’s appointment as head of communications focused on her well-publicised love of animals – useful, given the foundation’s charitable mission. It oversees Howletts and Port Lympne wildlife parks in Kent, home to exotic threatened species including rhinos, elephants, gorillas and cheetahs, which are prepared for a return to the wild in Africa. Continue reading...
At least 50 people die as train crashes near Hualien City at the start of holiday weekendDozens of people have been killed in a train derailment on the east coast of Taiwan, the island’s worst rail disaster in decades.The 408 Taroko Express was travelling south on the first day of a long weekend, carrying hundreds of passengers towards Taitung, when it crashed inside a tunnel just outside Hualien City at about 9.30am local time, authorities said. Continue reading...
After starring in Will & Grace and American Horror Story, his life took a twist in lockdown and he became an Instagram superstar at 65. He discusses fame, fun and sharing a cell with Robert Downey JrFor a man of such diminutive stature – 4ft 11in in shoes – Leslie Jordan loves a tall tale. A cursory question at the start of our interview about where he is calling from, for example, results in this glorious flight of fancy: “I got on a bus in 1982, from the hills of Tennessee. I had $1,200 sewn into my underpants by my mother and I arrived in LA and found West Hollywood, which is where I currently live.”Such vivid storytelling – delivered in a honey-thick southern drawl, accentuated perfectly by a knowing campness – is part of the reason for Jordan’s unexpected career boost at 65. A jobbing actor best known for his role in American Horror Story and his Emmy-winning turn as Beverly Leslie, the acid-tongued rival of Megan Mullally’s Karen in Will & Grace, Jordan spent most of 2020 becoming an accidental internet sensation, racking up 5.6 million Instagram followers – including the likes of Rihanna and Lily Allen – thanks to his charmingly chaotic videos. Continue reading...
Philippe Robrecht was living the quiet life with his wife and hens when stardom came calling backSomething odd happened to Philippe Robrecht while hunkered down in lockdown on Inishbofin, a tiny island with just 170 inhabitants off Ireland’s Atlantic coast: he became, again, a pop star.The 55-year-old musician and singer had not made an album in almost a decade and was all but forgotten in his native Belgium when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Ireland last year. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips and Analy Nuño in Guadalajara on (#5G3HK)
The Jalisco cartel’s violence has taken a horrific toll on the state and experts say it poses a threat to Mexico’s governmentIt was mid-spring when residents of the wasteland behind Guadalajara’s international airport noticed a dog roaming their community with a strange object in its mouth: a human forearm.Search teams in the ramshackle neighbourhood of La Piedrera entered a roofless red brick shack flanked by trees decked with bright orange mistletoe. Under several layers of dusky earth they made an even more grotesque discovery. Continue reading...
Ahead of the grand final of the brain-squeezing series next Monday, test your mental mettle with 15 questions set by the show’s quizmastersThe opening scene of which of Shakespeare’s plays comprises just 61 words, the longest of those words being "lightning", "hurlyburly" and "graymalkin"?MacbethTwelfth NightTimon of AthensComedy of ErrorsWhat term for a type of particle accelerator also applies to a type of electromagnetic radiation generated by charged particles spiralling in magnetic fields?CyclotronGammaSynchrotronColliderThe works of which Italian artist, born in 1449, include St Jerome in His Study and the frescoes for the Sassetti chapel in Florence? His numerous apprentices included Michelangelo.Fra AngelicoDomenico GhirlandaioLeonardo Da VinciSandro BotticelliFor which film set in Rome did Paolo Sorrentino win the 2014 Academy Award for best foreign language film?Life Is BeautifulThe Great BeautyParasiteThe PostmanWhat bird does the British Trust for Ornithology describe as: "By far the biggest passerine, with a similar wingspan to a buzzard. The bill is strikingly long and heavy"?Long-tailed titRookRavenTawny owlIn March 1969, the Ussuri River was the scene of armed clashes between which two major powers?China and the Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union and the USChina and the USThe UK and ArgentinaIn April 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly solo over which body of water, crossed earlier by Louis Blériot?The ChannelAtlantic OceanBlack SeaLake SuperiorDescribed as "the little town keeping the lights on in France", Arlit in Niger was until 2021 the site of one of the world’s largest mines of which toxic metal?BismuthMercuryLeadUraniumWhat colour links the field of the flag of the Basque country, William Morris’s house in Bexleyheath and leading football clubs in Belgrade and Salzburg?RedGreenPurpleBlueWho wrote the Nebula-award-winning novels Doomsday Book and All Clear?George R R MartinNeil GaimanConnie WillisUrsula Le GuinNenagh, Clonmel and Cashel are towns in which inland Irish county, bordering Galway and Cork?KerryTipperaryKildareOffalyAccording to Jeff Bezos, what "has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in the human being"?Online reviewsSocial mediaEmailHungerIn materials science, the ratio of the contractile to the tensile strains is named after which French scientist, born in 1781?Pierre-Simon LaplaceCharles FriedelSiméon-Denis PoissonLouis PasteurWhich English cathedral is noted for stained-glass rose windows known as the Dean’s Eye and the Bishop’s Eye?LincolnDurhamElyYork MinsterTotem and Taboo, and Civilisation and Its Discontents are early 20th-century works by which thinker?Otto RankFrantz FanonCarl JungSigmund Freud15 and above.You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo14 and above.You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo13 and above.You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo12 and above.You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo11 and above.You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo10 and above.And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?9 and above.And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?8 and above.And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?7 and above.And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?6 and above.And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?5 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round4 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round3 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round2 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round0 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round1 and above.Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next roundThe University Challenge grand final airs Monday 5 April at 8.30pm on BBC Two Continue reading...
Family of 28-year-old killed in 2015 ‘blindsided’ by discovery about officer facing misconduct chargesThe family of a man shot dead by a Metropolitan police firearms officer say they have been “blindsided” by the discovery that the officer is training colleagues in how to handle guns despite facing gross misconduct charges over the fatal shooting.The firearms officer, known only as W80, shot dead Jermaine Baker, 28, who was sitting in a car close to Wood Green crown court in north London in December 2015. Baker and others were attempting to free a prisoner, Izzet Eren, who was being brought to court in a prison van to be sentenced for a firearms offence. Baker died from a single gunshot wound. Continue reading...
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