Crowdfunding and significant donation from Nigel West - who has a family connection to Charlotte's husband - secure property, with plans to transform it into a cultural and education centreCampaigners have saved the birthplace of the Bronte sisters and are now fundraising to turn the building into a cultural and education centre - helped by a man with a link to the literary family.Nigel West, who traces a family connection to Charlotte Bronte's husband, made a significant donation" to the crowdfunding appeal, which aims to transform 72-74 Market Street in Thornton, Bradford, into a tourist destination. Continue reading...
The Oscar-nominated director will adapt the recent biography by Walter Isaacson after independent studio A24 won a heated' bidding war for rightsA biopic of billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is now in the works after independent studio A24 won the adaptation rights to Walter Isaacson's recent biography, with Black Swan's Darren Aronofsky on board to direct.Variety magazine reports that A24 triumphed in a heated competition" bidding war to acquire Isaacson's authorised biography Elon Musk, which was published in September. It was heavily criticised in some quarters, with the Guardian describing it as a dull, insight-free doorstop of a book", and it generated a number of controversies itself, with Isaacson forced to correct a suggestion that Musk had ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off to stop a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships. Continue reading...
Proposal comes after study showing 50% increase in risk of uterine cancer for users of straighteners, who are frequently Black womenThe Biden administration is proposing banning hair straighteners that contain formaldehyde, products in the US which are largely used by Black women.The move comes after years of pressure from public health advocates and follows recent calls from the US congresswomen Shontel Brown and Ayanna Pressley, both Black women, to ban the products. Continue reading...
Judge says he isn't attacking free speech, but practice of using lyrics as evidence has been widely denounced by major record labels and stars including Jay-ZA judge has said lyrics will be admissible as evidence in the trial of star US rapper Young Thug, a controversial practice that has been decried by free speech groups and other stars such as Jay-Z and Coldplay.Known for his distinctive vocal timbre, Young Thug, real name Jeffery Williams, is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed rappers in the US, whose albums So Much Fun and Punk both topped the charts there. He will shortly go on trial in his home city of Atlanta for racketeering, accused of running what prosecutors call a criminal street gang" called YSL (Young Slime Life, also Young Stoner Life), members of which have been charged with murder, carjackings and other alleged crimes. Williams's legal team maintain YSL is a record label and music collective, with lawyer Brian Steel saying the rapper has committed no violation of law whatsoever". Continue reading...
by Mark BrownNorth of England correspondent on (#6G91Y)
Supermarket chain to remove self-checkouts from all but two of its stores, saying we're not great fans'Some people love the speed and efficiency of supermarket self-checkouts. But then there's the not recognising your bag, the unexpected item in the bagging area, the surprising item on the scale, the point-blank refusal to scan something, the constant coupon confusion, and that's all before the long - so long - wait to get your alcohol or paracetamol approved.Booths, a high-end northern England supermarket chain, is siding with the dislikers and has announced it is removing self-checkouts in the majority of its stores. We're not great fans of self-checkouts," the Booths managing director, Nigel Murray, told the Grocer. We pride ourselves on great customer service and you can't do that through a robot." Continue reading...
Politicians have long sought to silence the genre, but previous clamp downs have only boosted its popularityA typical song by Peso Pluma, one of Mexico's most popular singers, might start with a guitar and a trumpet, sounding like something for the older crowd - but then come the lyrics telling of drug shipments, stacks of cash and diamond-encrusted pistols.Peso Pluma has produced some of the most notorious recent examples of narcocorridos - ballads celebrating the exploits of the Mexican underworld that are hugely popular not just at home but across Latin America and the US. Continue reading...
Actor and singer was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017 and revealed it was terminal last AugustJohnny Ruffo, the former Home and Away actor and X Factor contestant, has died aged 35.Ruffo was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, and underwent surgery to remove a tumour, but the cancer returned three years later. Last August, Ruffo revealed that his diagnosis was terminal. Continue reading...
Move follows resignation of CEO over row linked to closure of former Ukip leader's bank accountsNatWest is expected to scrap most of a potentially 10m-plus payout to Alison Rose, the banking group's former chief executive, who was forced to resign over a scandal linked to the closure of Nigel Farage's bank accounts.The board of NatWest is poised to announce that it will not pay most of the discretionary elements of Rose's remuneration package that are linked to performance, in an attempt to draw a line under the controversy. The taxpayer still owns almost 40% of NatWest, 15 years after it was bailed out by the UK government during the financial crisis. Continue reading...
Long-beaked echidna with spines of a hedgehog and snout of an anteater photographed on last day of expeditionScientists have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole, in Indonesia's Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded.
In today's newsletter: A November 2021 incident saw dozens die in a failed attempt to come to England in pursuit of asylum - what really happened, and why? Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning.At around 9pm on 24 November 2021, a small boat carrying 33 migrants departed from Dunkirk, France in an attempt to cross the English Channel. Four hours later, that boat started to sink. Some of the occupants began making distress calls to British and French authorities requesting help. As the coast guard services on either side spent crucial hours going back and forth about responsibility for the rescue, the people on the boat were fighting for their lives.Israel-Hamas war | Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas, but a credible force" would be needed to enter the Palestinian territory if necessary to prevent the emergence of militant threats.Conservatives | Suella Braverman's future as home secretary appears to be in doubt after Downing Street said it had not cleared an incendiary article in which she accused the Met police of bias.Health | Black babies in England are almost three times more likely to die than white babies after death rates surged in the last year, according to figures that have led to warnings that racism, poverty and pressure on the NHS must be tackled to prevent future fatalities.Water industry | Thames Water has pumped at least 72bn litres of sewage into the River Thames since 2020 - roughly equal to 29,000 Olympic swimming pools, new figures reveal.Social care | The government has delayed several key reforms to social care staffing in England due to political chaos caused by the collapse of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments and a Whitehall recruitment freeze. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#6G8XK)
National Audit Office says political chaos has delayed proposed measures to improve recruitment in EnglandThe government has delayed several key reforms to social care staffing in England due to political chaos caused by the collapse of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments and a Whitehall recruitment freeze, it has emerged.Work to create new training places and develop the low-paid care workforce was supposed to start in September but has been delayed by at least six months. Continue reading...
by Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent on (#6G8XN)
Manchester's Museum of Austerity uses AR to depict real people with disabilities who fell through society's safety netIt is impossible to look away from the shimmering figures that emerge in what appears at first to be an empty room. And that is the point.Through a headset donned at the entrance of Museum of Austerity, which opened at the Home theatre in Manchester on Wednesday, holograms of people glow in eerie augmented reality. Approaching them, they feel real and touchable but also ghostly and ephemeral, which they are: they are real people who died when our societal safety net did not catch them.The Museum of Austerity installation, an English Touring Theatre (ETT) co-production with National Theatre Immersive Storytelling Studio and Trial & Error Studio, will be at Home Manchester from 8 to 11 November 2023. Each session lasts 45 minutes, running 11.30am-9.15pm, Wednesday to Saturday. Continue reading...
Woman rushed to Flinders Medical Centre with serious injuries after incident near AdelaideA 32-year-old woman has been left with serious injuries after a shark attack at Port Noarlunga Jetty in South Australia.SA Ambulance Services said the woman was bitten on the head at around 1:20pm at the beach, which is south of Adelaide. Continue reading...
Regime can no longer afford all its diplomatic missions, including some to longtime allies such as Angola where it has maintained ties since 1975While Kim Jong-un basks in the afterglow of his recent visit to Russia, North Korea is scaling back its presence overseas, with reported plans to close almost a quarter of its diplomatic missions blamed on its sanctions-hit economy.While the regime moves closer to China and Russia amid new tensions on the Korean peninsula, years of UN-led sanctions have forced it to close embassies and consulates in as many as a dozen locations, including those in countries Pyongyang views as longtime allies. Continue reading...
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi and Shaikh Azizur R on (#6G8VJ)
Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party are seeking a fourth consecutive term and are accused of harassing the rival BNP partyIn Bangladesh, there is no more room left in the prisons. In the last two weeks alone, almost 10,000 opposition leaders, supporters and activists have been arrested after protests broke out against the ruling government, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.Thousands of other political prisoners have already been inside these cells for months, many facing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminal charges. Rajshahi central jailhas a capacity of about 4,000 prisoners. It now holds more than 13,600. Continue reading...
Canal Productions liable in gender discrimination suit filed by Graham Chase Robinson, while De Niro found not personally liableRobert De Niro's production company was found liable on Thursday by a jury for gender discrimination and retaliation, and ordered to pay $1.3m to the Hollywood star's former assistant.The 80-year-old actor and director was not found personally liable by the jury in New York after a two week trial. Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#6G8SY)
Calls over pothole incidents hit 6,000 in usually benign summer months amid substandard' roadsVehicle breakdowns caused by Britain's pothole-ridden roads reached record levels this year, according to the RAC.The motoring organisation said it received almost 6,000 calls for pothole-related incidents from July to September - its highest total for the relatively benign summer period since it started collecting data in 2006. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6G8SZ)
England's chief medical officer says more realistic conversations needed about some treatments' side-effectsEngland's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, has called for a cultural shift in medicine away from maximising lifespan and towards improving quality of life in old age, arguing that sometimes this means less medicine, not more".Speaking before the publication of his 2023 annual report, which this year focuses on health in an ageing society, Whitty said doctors needed to have more realistic conversations with patients about the risk of some treatments extending life at the expense of quality of life and independence. Continue reading...
Frontier Touring announces new tickets to Swift's five Australian shows will be released at 10am on Friday, with a ticket resale market launching in two weeksMore tickets to Taylor Swift's Melbourne and Sydney shows are going on sale on Friday, with Ticketek also announcing a date for the highly anticipated resale of tickets.Swift's Eras tour broke Australian records earlier this year in June, when more than four million people tried to snap up about 450,000 tickets for the five concerts, to take place in Melbourne on 16 and 17 February, and Sydney on 23-25 February 2024. Continue reading...
Case of Elnaz Hajtamiri, taken from Ontario home by three men with police equipment in January 2022, had stumped investigatorsThe ex-boyfriend of a Canadian woman who was abducted by fake police officers has been charged with first-degree murder, marking the latest twist in a high-profile kidnapping case that had appeared to stump investigators for nearly two years.Elnaz Hajtamiri was dragged from a property in an Ontario beach community on 12 January 2022 by three men with police equipment who forced their way into the home and hauled her barefoot through the snow to a waiting vehicle. Continue reading...
Majority of migrants rescued in Matehuala were from Central and South America and included 34 childrenAuthorities have found 123 people from Central and South America trapped in a trailer in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, the country's immigration agency said on Thursday.Officials from the state attorney general's office found the people in Matehuala, a city on the border of Nuevo Leon, on Wednesday after a local reported hearing cries for help from a locked trailer box. Continue reading...
by Patrick Butler Social policy editor on (#6G8HV)
Orlando Fraser promises crackdown on squeamish' charities turning down donations on moral groundsThe head of England's charity regulator has promised to crack down on squeamish" charity boards who reject large cash donations from corporations or wealthy philanthropists on moral grounds.Orlando Fraser, the chair of the Charity Commission, said the regulator may intervene where trustees have rejected or returned donations simply because their personal worldviews or preferences" were incompatible with those of the donor. Continue reading...
Tory allies claim she is reflecting the views of a silent majority' who are too often ignored at WestminsterGetting rid of Suella Braverman, if you are Rishi Sunak, is not as easy as it might first appear.The home secretary has already handed the prime minister several opportunities, none of which have been taken up. Continue reading...
At freedom of information tribunal, Guardian says it has not been publicly explained how such data might be useful to attackersThe Home Office should publicly reveal the cost to the taxpayer of providing security to the royal family, a barrister representing the Guardian has told a tribunal.The news organisation has brought a legal case arguing that disclosure of the figure would enable a more informed public discussion about the costs and benefits of the monarchy. Continue reading...
by Sam Jones in Madrid and Lili Bayer in Brussels on (#6G8EJ)
The architect of the illegal Catalonian 2017 referendum has signed an unlikely deal to support Spains's socialists back into government in return for amnestyDespite the fast-moving, wildly unpredictable and frequently improbable turns Spanish politics has taken of late, very few pundits could have predicted the scenes that played out in Belgium on Thursday.A little after 2pm, a 60-year-old Catalan politician and fugitive from Spanish justice addressed a packed conference at the Brussels press club. As reporters brimmed with questions that would go unanswered, Carles Puigdemont appeared to be relishing his moment. Continue reading...
Opposition leaders accuse first minister and deputy of misleading Holyrood after they are forced to retract statements about message requestsHumza Yousaf has apologised for shortcomings" with the release of government WhatsApp messages, as he faced new secrecy allegations over legal advice and private emails written during the Covid crisis.The first minister apologised unreservedly" on Thursday after the UK Covid inquiry challenged the accuracy of parliamentary statements made last week by him and his deputy, Shona Robison, about its requests for access to WhatsApp messages. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#6G8AH)
Inequalities between rich and poor areas and white and black communities widening, according to child mortality dataBlack babies in England are almost three times more likely to die than white babies after death rates surged in the last year, according to figures that have led to warnings that racism, poverty and pressure on the NHS must be tackled to prevent future fatalities.The death rate for white infants has stayed steady at about three per 1,000 live births since 2020, but for black and black British babies it has risen from just under six to almost nine per 1,000, according to figures from the National Child Mortality Database, which gathers standardised data on the circumstances of children's deaths. Infant death rates in the poorest neighbourhood rose to double those in the richest areas, where death rates fell. Continue reading...
PM's WhatsApp messages show he felt odd' to bash the cops' having only seen footage of some argy bargy'Boris Johnson said it felt odd" to bash" Metropolitan police officers who had interrupted the Sarah Everard vigil as all he had seen is footage of some argy bargy".The prime minister's WhatsApp messages from March 2021 were shown during the Covid inquiry as Priti Patel gave evidence. Continue reading...
Increase in discrimination, vandalism, graffiti and abusive behaviour since outbreak of Israel-Hamas warSchools across England are struggling with the emotional turmoil set off by the terrorist attacks on Israel last month and the impact on students, parents and teachers.Specialist organisations such as the Community Security Trust and Tell Mama say they are seeing a big increase in reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia involving schools and pupils since the 7 October attacks and Israel's invasion of Gaza. Continue reading...
Home secretary accuses force of being biased against rightwing protesters and favouring groups such as Palestine Solidarity CampaignAlistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) says every day 6,000 crimes go unsolved. If the home secretary does not have confidence in the police, or thinks she could do a better job, she should say so, he says.Diana Johnson (Lab), chair of the home affairs committee, says her committee backs the idea of operational independence for the police. It is a concept that goes back to 1885. If the government wants to change that, it should be debated in parliament, she says. Continue reading...
Jozef Puska faces mandatory life sentence after Ashling Murphy was murdered in January 2022A man has been found guilty of killing a primary school teacher last year, in a case that shocked Ireland.Ashling Murphy, 23, a popular local teacher and musician, was murdered as she jogged along a canal near Tullamore, central Ireland, in January 2022. Continue reading...
Chapman is first Black songwriter to win the award, after a 2023 Luke Combs's version helped the song gain newfound popularityTracy Chapman has become the first Black songwriter to win the Country Music Awards' song of the year - 35 years after the relevant number was a hit for her.It was 1988 when Chapman's dulcet tones and guitar plucks emanated from seemingly every speaker with her smash Fast Car. On Wednesday night in Nashville, during the CMA's ceremony, it won a top award, Rolling Stone first reported. The annual award ceremony is one of the largest celebrations of country music. Continue reading...
Backing for socialist government hinged on proposed amnesty for activists involved in 2017 attempt to separate Catalonia from SpainToday we live in a democracy worse than yesterday," the conservative People's party deputy secretary Miguel Tellado wrote following news of an agreement between the socialists and Junts.Spain's socialist party and Catalan separatist party Junts have confirmed that they have reached a deal for Junts to support a Socialist-led government, Reuters reported. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian