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Killing of journalists in Israeli strike could be a war crime, legal experts say
Israel used US munition to target and kill three members of the press in Lebanon, Guardian investigation revealsA Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in a 25 October attack in south Lebanon which legal experts have called a potential war crime.On 25 October at 3.19am, an Israeli jet shot two bombs at a chalet hosting three journalists – cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet al-Manar. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:30:31
Shock in Romania as hard-right Nato critic Calin Georgescu takes lead in presidential election
Georgescu, who has called Nato’s ballistic missile defence shield a ‘shame of diplomacy’, will likely head into a run-off with leftist prime minister Marcel CiolacuA little-known, far-right populist took the lead in Romania’s presidential election on Sunday, electoral data showed, and will probably face leftist prime minister Marcel Ciolacu in a runoff in two weeks, an outcome that has rocked the country’s political landscape.Calin Georgescu, who ran independently, led the polls with about 22% of the vote after nearly 93% of votes were counted, while Ciolacu of the Social Democratic party, or PSD, trailed at 21%. Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, stood at about 18%, and George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, took about 14%. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 02:55:55
Briton reportedly captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine
Man in video identifies himself as James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, and says he joined the International LegionA British national has reportedly been captured by Russia’s forces in the Kursk region while fighting for Ukraine.In a video posted on pro-war Russian Telegram channels on Sunday, a man wearing combat fatigues identifies himself as 22-year-old James Scott Rhys Anderson from the UK. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 21:41:35
Singer claims Sweden ‘punishing’ her British husband by refusing him leave to remain
Tess Merkel Solomons bewails ‘disgusting’ treatment of husband after he missed post-Brexit application deadlineA singer with a Swedish disco band who performed at this year’s Eurovision has told of the “dehumanising” and “distressing” consequences of Brexit after her British husband’s application to remain in Sweden was rejected.Tess Merkel Solomons, a singer with the band Alcazar, said it felt as if her husband, Kenny Solomons, an actor and entrepreneur, was being “punished” because he was a British citizen in Sweden after Brexit. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:34
Turkish woman convicted under anti-terror laws for sharing Guardian article
Peri Pamir given suspended sentence after posting article about UK woman killed fighting with Kurdish forces in SyriaA Turkish woman who shared a Guardian article on social media about a British woman killed fighting with Kurdish forces in Syria has described how she was twice convicted of “sharing terrorist propaganda” in an Istanbul court.“I am basically just an ordinary citizen, there is no reason why I should attract any special attention. This is the disturbing part,” said Peri Pamir, a 71-year-old retired researcher. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:34
Amazon workers in 20 countries to protest or strike on Black Friday
Workers and their representatives to press US retailer to respect their rights and take action on the climate crisisThousands of Amazon workers are expected to protest or strike in more than 20 countries during Black Friday to press for better workers’ rights and climate action from the US retailer..Workers and representatives from unions and workers’ groups intend to join protests against the Seattle-based company’s practices between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (29 November and 2 December), one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:32
Home is the most dangerous place for women, says global femicide report
Of the 85,000 women killed by men in 2023, 60% died at the hands of a partner or family member, new UN figures showAn estimated 140 women and girls across the world die at the hands of their partner or family member every day, according to new global estimates on femicide by the UN.The report by UN Women found 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally by men in 2023, with 60% (51,100) of these deaths committed by someone close to the victim. The organisation said its figures showed that, globally, the most dangerous place for a woman to be was in her home, where the majority of women die at the hands of men. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:33
Beijing orders investigations into local disputes after spate of deadly attacks
Mass stabbings and car rammings have prompted soul-searching about the state of society Beijing is ramping up scrutiny of “common” disputes such as those involving marriages and property, the justice ministry said, as the public reels from a recent string of deadly attacks.China has witnessed a spate of violent incidents in recent months – from mass stabbings to car rammings – a rare development for a country with a proud reputation for public security. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 00:35:08
Trump’s eldest son emerges as key voice influencing cabinet picks – report
President-elect has become particularly reliant on Donald Jr for advice, sources tell ReutersDonald Trump Jr has emerged as the family’s most influential adviser of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history, sources close to Donald Trump’s eldest son say.Trump Jr has in some cases promoted inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 16:14:03
Lord Byron museum to open in Italian building where poet had intense affair
Visitors will be able to explore Palazzo Guiccioli in Ravenna, where Byron romanced its aristocrat owner’s wifeA museum dedicated to the flamboyant British poet and satirist Lord Byron is due to open in the northern Italian city of Ravenna, housed in the same building where he pursued an intense affair with the wife of an aristocrat and completed some of his most famous works.Byron unabashedly moved in 1819 into Palazzo Guiccioli, owned by the husband of Countess Teresa Guiccioli, whom he met at a party in Venice. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 06:06:25
Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine targeted by nearly 500 Iran-designed drones in a week, Zelenskyy says
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he fears his country is becoming a ‘testing ground’ for Russian weapons. What we know on day 1,006See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverageVolodymyr Zelenskyy has said he fears that Ukraine will become “a testing ground” for Russian munitions, with the country being targeted by nearly 500 drones in the past week, as well as more than 20 missiles. Though Russia’s first ever use of the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile on Dnipro on Thursday captured global attention, on Sunday Zelenskyy highlighted the increased level of Shahed drone attacks. Ukraine says Russia has set up two factories to make the distinctive Iran-designed, delta-winged Shahed 136 drones, called Geran-2 by Moscow, about 800 miles from the border in Ukraine.A British national has reportedly been captured by Russian forces in the Kursk region while fighting for Ukraine. A video posted on pro-war Russian Telegram channels on Sunday, shows a man wearing combat fatigues who identifies himself as 22-year-old James Scott Rhys Anderson from the UK. Speaking with an English accent, the man says that he served as a signalman in the British army until 2023 before joining the International Legion in Ukraine to fight against Russia. The footage, which has not been verified, shows the captured man with his hands tied. It is unclear when the clip was recorded. Thousands of people from around the world have travelled to Ukraine, many joining the International Legion, after a call from Zelenskyy to join the fight.The geopolitical implications of the Ukraine war are rippling through Asia, with claims in the US that China is growing “increasingly uncomfortable” about North Korea’s engagement with Russia. China is unnerved by the growing cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, Kurt Campbell, the US deputy secretary of state has said, with Beijing fearing the issue may help America form alliances with South Korea and Japan in east Asia. Campbell was weighing in on a growing debate among the US’s security partners in Asia on whether China supports the decision of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to send 10,000 troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine. It has been reported that the North Korean troops are now inside Russia.Falling debris from destroyed Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s Kaluga, officials said early on Monday. Vladislav Shapsha, the regional governor, said that there were no injuries and that three drones were destroyed. He did not say which facility was on fire.Britain and its Nato allies must stay ahead in “the new AI arms race”, British Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden is expected to say on Monday, warning that Russian cyber criminals are increasingly targeting countries that support Ukraine. Addressing the Nato Cyber Defence Conference in London, McFadden is expected to unveil Britain’s plans to set up a new Laboratory for AI security to help create better cyber defence tools and organise intelligence on attacks, according to Reuters. In the latest warning about Moscow stepping up cyber-attacks on nations backing Ukraine, McFadden will call on the US-led military alliance, businesses and institutions to do “everything they can to lock their own digital doors” to protect themselves from what he called an increasingly aggressive Russia.In the US, Republican lawmakers are pushing back against criticism that Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence services is “compromised” by her comments supportive of Russia, the Associated Press reports. The accusation came from Illinois Democrat and senator Tammy Duckworth who said she is concerned about the pro-Russian views expressed by Tulsi Gabbard, who was tapped for the post of director of national intelligence. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, told CNN the criticism was “outright dangerous”, while Republican senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri said he thought it was “totally ridiculous” that Gabbard was being cast as a Russian asset for having different political views. “It’s insulting. It’s a slur, quite frankly. There’s no evidence that she’s a asset of another country,” he said on NBC. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 02:10:07
Polluted rivers, uprooted farmland and lost taxes: Ghana counts cost of illegal gold mining boom
Estimated $2bn lost in missed taxes from environmentally destructive practice some blame on political corruptionFelicity Nelson remembers her 17-day detention last September vividly. The 34-year-old Ghanaian activist was one of 53 people arrested at a road junction in Accra after demonstrating alongside hundreds of other youths against illegal mining.In detention, the group found a 54th person in their midst who had not been at the protest but was apprehended after visiting Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the protest’s organiser in hospital. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:34
Palestinian artists plan Gaza Biennale as ‘act of resistance and survival’
Project involves showing work in Gaza but also sending works across Israeli siege lines for exhibiting worldwidePalestinian artists in Gaza plan to stage a “biennale” exhibition as an act of defiance against Israel’s military onslaught and to focus attention on the plight of the territory’s 2.3 million people under more than 13 months of bombardment.About 50 artists from Gaza will exhibit their work within the besieged coastal strip, and are looking for art galleries to host exhibitions overseas. But in order to hold their work to the eyes of the rest of the world, the artists are facing a unique challenge: how to get their art across Israeli siege lines. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:36
Cop29 climate finance deal criticised as ‘travesty of justice’ and ‘stage-managed’
Some countries say deal should not have been done and is ‘abysmally poor’ compared with what is neededThe climate finance deal agreed at Cop29 is a “travesty of justice” that should not have been adopted, some countries’ negotiators have said.The climate conference came to a dramatic close early on Sunday morning when negotiators struck an agreement to triple the flow of climate finance to poorer countries. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 15:13:41
Cop29’s new carbon market rules offer hope after scandal and deadlock
Countries agree on how to create, trade and register credits to meet climate commitmentsIt was once among the most promising ways to funnel climate finance to vulnerable communities and nature conservation. The trading of carbon credits, each equal to a tonne of CO2 that has been reduced or removed from the atmosphere, was meant to target quick, cost-effective wins on climate and biodiversity. In 2022, demand soared as companies made environmental commitments using offsets, with the market surpassing $2bn (£1.6bn) while experiencing exponential growth. But the excitement did not last.Two years later, many carbon markets organisations are clinging on for survival, with several firms losing millions of dollars a year and cutting jobs. Scandals about environmentally worthless credits, an FBI charge against a leading project developer for a $100m fraud, and a lack of clarity about where money from offsets went has caused their market value to plunge by more than half. Predictions that standing rainforests and other carbon-rich ecosystems would become multibillion-dollar assets have not yet come to pass. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 10:03:11
Think the Cop29 climate summit doesn’t matter? Here are five things you should know
Who pays how much to fund the switch from fossil fuels, what to do about nuclear power, and who hosts Cop31 are key questionsThe Cop29 UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, scheduled to finish Friday local time, are dragging into the weekend as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggle to reach a consensus on the key issues being debated: a new global climate finance goal and what needs to be done about fossil fuels.What is happening in Baku is significant, no matter how frustrating a process and inadequate an outcome it may seem. Here are five things worth knowing about it. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-22 14:08:38
Yes, there is a lot of greenwashing, but Cop summits are our best chance of averting climate breakdown | Ashish Ghadiali
Despite its imperfections the process of tackling the climate crisis will not be derailed, even in the face of US backtrackingIt was never an indication of great things to come when the chief executive of Cop29, Elnur Soltanov, was filmed attempting to broker gas and oil deals for Azerbaijan in the slipstream of the past fortnight’s UN climate summit in Baku.More than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists have been operating in and around Cop29, outnumbering delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries combined. Many, including Greta Thunberg, now argue that the UN climate process has been entirely hijacked by corporate interests, reduced to a global stage for greenwash.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at [email protected] Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 08:00:06
Kaya Scodelario on Skins, scares and sex scenes: ‘I was called an English rose – it really pissed me off’
She became famous in the late 00s as Effy in Skins, and now she’s back in Netflix drama Senna. She talks about growing up poor in London, why she loves doing action films – and the pitfalls of taking her kids to workAs well as an eight-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter, Kaya Scodelario is the dedicated parent of a 10-year-old French bulldog called Arnie. She is hiding from at least one of them during our video call, and says it’s the dog.She is in the cosy and, crucially, locked spare bedroom of her home in north London, where she sits cross-legged on the floor. The mood is decidedly wholesome, and spiritually a million miles away from the place where audiences first encountered her, on Channel 4’s landmark teen drama Skins. Her character, Effy Stonem – sister to Nicholas Hoult’s Tony – uttered barely a word in series one and two; by series three she was the lead, captivating the boys of Bristol’s Roundview sixth form, not least by challenging them to sniff glue and start fires in return for sex with her. All the while, she was slipping deeper into trauma and depression. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:33
A new start after 60: I became a ‘hummingbird’ for people with dementia
When Ann Thomas-Carter retired, she lost her sense of purpose. Then she began volunteering in a care home and found six hours could fly past in six minutes At 63, Ann Thomas-Carter stepped into Framland care home for the first time and was immediately taken aback. “It wasn’t like a care home at all; it was this beautiful old manor house overlooking the Oxfordshire countryside and there were only 21 residents,” she says. “It felt like a big family, especially since everyone calls the residents ‘family members’. I fitted in right away.”Thomas-Carter used to work as a pharmacy dispenser at Boots in Oxford town centre. “I had worked most of my life at Boots and it was a safe place for me, somewhere I could be face to face with customers and help them,” she says. But when it emerged that the job was about to change, Thomas-Carter decided to retire. “I thought I would start to spend time pottering around the garden, but after a few weeks without work I began to feel like I never should have left.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 06:55:33
‘Cosmetic surgery is screwing up the industry’: Peter Mullan and Robyn Malcolm on their stunning midlife drama
In After the Party, real-life couple Peter Mullan and Robyn Malcolm play two bitterly estranged exes. They talk middle-aged baggage, Scottish independence and ‘aspirational casting’‘We’re both yappers,” says Peter Mullan, the Glaswegian actor and firebrand. “So we yapped a lot. Actors we admire. Art we admire. Politics, life, love, death, all the usual stuff.” Mullan is telling me how he and Robyn Malcolm, the New Zealand actor and firebrand, first got together. “So we did a lot of yap,” he goes on. “And we’re nice enough to give the other one time to yap.” Malcolm, seated by his side, sweetly interjects: “And we still do.”We’re here to talk about After the Party, which Malcolm co-wrote with screenwriter Dianne Taylor. Malcolm co-stars with Mullan – although absolutely not in a “lovey-dovey way”. They play exes whose mutual distrust is fathomless. They actually have some previous in this. “We met during Top of the Lake,” says Malcolm, referring to the 2013 mystery drama. “His character was an arsehole to mine. You can do smoochy scenes with an actor you just abhor. And you can do brutal stuff with an actor you adore. We had a ball.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:32
Tsunami: Race Against Time review – a gripping, moving look at the worst natural disaster of our lifetimes
This documentary about the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami is horrifying, heart-rending and essential. It’s a privilege to hear some of these survivors speak about the experienceWhat more can be said about the worst natural disaster of our lifetimes? The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, caused by an earthquake (the third-most powerful in history) off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, affected 14 countries around the Indian Ocean basin and killed more than 225,000 people. As an incomprehensibly massive event that occurred before smartphones were ubiquitous, the tsunami is very well documented and yet not: the mess of scrambled pictures has been picked over many times.Tsunami: Race Against Time, a four-part documentary that flies by, reshapes the catastrophe into an anthology of gripping stories, capturing the carnage and stirring, moving tales of survival. The contemporary footage – walls of water silently approaching beaches, torrents raging through buildings, people hurt or dead in the aftermath – has been painstakingly resourced and expertly linked together, but it’s the testimonies of the survivors that stick. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:31
Dead cool and wolverine: from animal tracking to ski touring in Sweden
A prototype electric snowmobile and old-school wooden skis open up Sweden’s backcountry as our writer goes on the hunt for local wildlifeOn the slopes up to the ridge, the snow is deep and fresh. Long frozen arms of it hug the trees. Behind us the tracks of our skis gleam with a strange blue light, and in front, delicately drawn into the snow, is the perfect feathery imprint of a bird – like a pale icy fossil. My guide, Jens Sarlin, from Next Step Nature, stops. “Capercaillie,” he says. “It was feeding on pine needles up top and has landed here, then dug a burrow in the snow. It may still be there.”We edge forwards. A trail of bird footprints lead to a hole, but it’s empty except for some droppings. “They dig down and then sideways to fool the foxes,” says Jens. We move forwards again, silent on our hunters’ skis, antique wooden heirlooms that slip easily over deep soft snow. What we are hunting, with cameras only, is something rarely seen – the wolverine – and Jens knows the best places to find them. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:37
Meta Quest 3S review: the best bang for your buck in VR
Headset offers near top-tier experience at cut-down price with good fit, fast chip, great controllers and large games libraryMeta’s latest virtual reality headset offers almost everything that makes its top model the best on the market but at a price that is far more palatable as an entry into VR.The Quest 3S costs £290 (€330/$300/A$500) – about 40% less than the £470 Quest 3 and cheaper than 2020’s Quest 2 that it directly replaces. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:35
The surreal deal: the exhibitions celebrating the revolutionary, illogical art of the absurd
Rising as a rebuttal to fascism, sexism and war in the 1920s and 30s, surrealism was a response to ‘a world gone mad’. As the movement marks its centenary, two new shows are celebrating its past and futureOne hundred years ago last month, the 28-year-old poet André Breton penned the Surrealist Manifesto, shucking off “the reign of logic”, calling out “the pretence of civilisation and progress” and heralding “the omnipotence of dream”. Breton wanted nothing less than a new reality – one that might overturn a world shaped by religion, schools and governments – by seeking truths within the self: “The future resolution of these two states, dream and reality […] into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality.” To create it, he and his evolving gang of Parisian writers and artists turned to the unconscious, spontaneity, automatic creation and collagist games.Two exhibitions mark the manifesto’s centenary in Britain this month, giving some sense of just how playful and diffuse the fruits of Breton’s rallying cry have been. At Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes at the Hepworth Wakefield, you can encounter young artists still flying the flag for the movement alongside some of its signature historical works. These include the eerie wastelands Salvador Dalí filled with random phones, shape-shifting rocks and melting clocks, and the classic philosophical game by René “bowler hat” Magritte, where a painted landscape within a painted landscape riffs on Plato’s allegory of the cave. There’s also Max Ernst’s painting using floorboard rubbings to suggest tangled woods haunted by his childhood fears and fantasies, and his one-time partner Leonora Carrington’s fairytale-esque animal-human fusions. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 08:00:34
‘If you get it wrong, people get badly hurt’: the cut-throat world of theatre fight directors
When a scene calls for violence, it’s combat choreographers who prevent actors coming a cropper during the action. They explain the rules of stage conflictPhilip d’Orléans points the sword to my sternum. “The blade may be blunt,” he cautions, “but this could still take your eye out.” I cut his sword away with a dizzying metallic swish. Palm down, wrist loose. “Cast the energy to the wall,” he nods. “It needs to go past your partner, not into them.” I ready the dagger in my other hand to defend against his next attack.As a fight director, D’Orléans has created complex choreography for companies around the world, teaching hundreds of actors how to tell stories with fist and steel. This Christmas, he’s reviving the spirit of the golden age of Hollywood swashbucklers for an action-packed production of The Three Musketeers at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic theatre. This new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 classic takes sword fighting seriously: no actors were considered until they had passed D’Orléans’ tough trial of balance-shifting battle moves. “A lot of people can blag the ability to fight,” he shrugs, throwing his waist-length hair over one shoulder. “But once you turn up the heat on the choreography, you can quickly weed out the rocky skill-sets.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:37
Who is really escalating the war in Ukraine? It certainly isn’t the west | James Nixey
The policy of the US and Europe remains the same: drip-feeding resources while never giving Ukraine the chance to push Russia outJames Nixey leads the Russia-Eurasia programme at Chatham HouseEven for a country that has been at war for more than 1,000 days, the past month has been rough for Ukraine: its nemesis, Russia, has acquired 11,000 troops from North Korea and mercenaries from Yemen to assist in its project to delete Ukraine. Russia has also pulverised Ukraine’s energy grid with renewed ferocity as temperatures fall below freezing and fired off experimental intermediate-range weaponry, and it continues to make gains in the east. As if that weren’t enough, Russia’s preferred candidate has been elected as the American president, promising to end the war in “24 hours” – and not in Ukraine’s favour.And yet after all this, the question I have been asked continuously over the past week is: “Is the west escalating the war?” The question refers to the rescinding of some of the limitations imposed on Ukraine which forbade it from using western missiles to strike inside Russian territory. Far from being escalatory, western policy on the war is in fact best described as incrementalism – a drip-feed release of weaponry, which keeps Ukraine on a lifeline but certainly doesn’t allow it the possibility of pushing Russia out. The reason it has not been given this opportunity is twofold.James Nixey leads the Russia-Eurasia programme at Chatham HouseDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 08:00:35
‘Woke’ didn’t lose the US election: the patrician class who hijacked identity politics did | Nesrine Malik
Why is this simple explanation being so widely embraced? Because it does not require a commitment to real, structural changeThe day that wokeness died. That has been one of the primary analyses of Donald Trump’s resounding election victory: that it was a resounding rejection of the “woke” left and the casting off of the shackles of political correctness. According to sections of the media and political establishment, people are tired of being harangued and scolded for not using the right language, annoyed by a constant focus on race and identity, and alarmed by a new orthodoxy of radical politics eager to please individual groups at the expense of common sense. “The era,” summarised one British journalist, “of Black Lives Matter, Latinx, critical race theory, pronouns and defunding the police is over.” It’s a neat conclusion – it’s hard not to see this result as a rejection of something. But was that something “woke” values in particular?As a starting point, it is worth looking at Kamala Harris’s campaign rather than the assumptions about it. In reality, she seemed to avoid any focus on identity and “wokeness”. She didn’t make much of her race, or even her gender, choosing instead to ground her identity in her background as a middle-class person raised in a rental household by a hardworking mother. Her position on race softened from when she was running in 2019: she previously backed “some form” of reparations but did not stake out a position as part of her bid. Trump wanted Harris “to say something to turn off white voters. She was wise not to take the bait,” wrote the author Keith Boykin. She was hardline on immigration, keen to show that she is a gun owner (memorably telling Oprah Winfrey: “If someone breaks into my house they’re getting shot”). And she was evasive on gender-affirming care for transgender Americans.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 06:00:33
In Sweden, we’ve been told to prepare for war. But will 21st-century citizens still rally for the common good? | Martin Gelin
For decades, Swedish politics has promoted individual success. Now an official booklet urges us to unite ‘in case of crisis or war’ Swedes are generally not known to panic or overreact. But many of us are feeling a little shaken after a booklet with a soldier in camouflage holding a machine gun, with a fighter jet tearing through the sky in the background, landed on our door mats recently.The government booklet, titled “In case of crisis or war”, was sent to every Swedish household as the threat of attack from Russia escalates. It signals the beginning of a new era in our country, with a bleak message about threats from war, natural disasters and pandemics. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:33
Multilateralism faces a toxic brew of debt, climate crisis and war. It’s time for a reboot | Mo Ibrahim
The stakes are high for donors at next month’s IDA summit in Seoul, but not investing in development means more instability globallyMultilateralism is under attack. A toxic brew of multiplying conflicts, worsening climate impact, new pandemics and spiralling debt has brought the system to its knees, appearing almost incapable of properly addressing these converging crises. Adding the unknowns of a Trump administration into the mix will do little to allay concerns.My own critiques of the current multilateral system are well documented, but I do not subscribe to the view that it has no future. What’s needed is a total reboot. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:34
As Cop29 wraps up and the climate crisis gathers pace, Australia’s dash for gas is confounding | Bill Hare
Nearly all observers believe Chris Bowen is strongly committed to action. Most agree that can’t be said for his partyCop29 in Baku has concluded but its outcome is disappointing – in many dimensions. Its decisions on finance – agreeing that the developed world would provide US$300bn a year by 2035 – come nowhere close to what’s needed. Ultimately, it may even be poisonous because of its lack of ambition and muddled scope – it does not even cover loss and damage.Baku saw little sense of urgency or increased climate action, despite the universal message from scientific studies, including the Climate Action Tracker. Our global update this year found that in the last three years there’s been virtually no improvement in either action on the ground, nor ambition to take action in the future. And this is despite a series of seemingly never-ending, global warming-linked deadly catastrophes unfolding around the world. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 00:27:19
Without the EU, the joke is on us if Trump gets his tariffs | William Keegan
Stronger ties with the single market is the only way to stop the president-elect from having the last laugh‘As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.”Those were the words of the great American journalist HL Mencken (in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 26 July 1920). The impending arrival back at the White House surely fulfils his prophecy. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 07:00:09
India beat Australia by 295 runs: first men’s Test, day four – as it happened
Travis Head’s defiant 89 delayed the inevitable in Perth, where India completed a crushing victory just after tea8th over: Australia 19-4 (Smith 4, Head 1) A maiden for Siraj, bowling to Head, who is playing just about everything to the leg side, hopping about a bit just to keep the ball out.7th over: Australia 19-4 (Smith 4, Head 1) A couple of singles from the Bumrah over, both batters nudging to the leg side, keeping out the threat. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 08:11:30
Never write him off: how Max Verstappen overcame ‘undriveable monster’ to win fourth world title
At times the world champion ground it out on will alone but an unforgettable drive in Brazil turned things back his wayMax Verstappen was clear all season he wanted to win the Formula One world title with a dominant car, just as he had the previous two years. Much as he might have enjoyed more of a canter, the fight for his fourth title, secured in Las Vegas, was not only far greater sport but also showed how complete a driver he has matured into.Beating him in future is going to be a fearsome task, as his title rival Lando Norris acknowledged. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 08:21:09
Manchester United’s joyless incoherence frees Amorim from any illusions | Barney Ronay
Digesting the deathly spirit of this team in the flesh will have emphasised to the coach the complexities of his taskWell, something to work on there then, Ruben. It would be tempting at the end of this decelerating game of semi-football to talk about Ruben Amorim at least realising the scale of the job he faces.Except, given Amorim almost certainly possesses a TV set and is interested in football, he already knows the scale of the job. And the scale is: really very big indeed. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 20:43:44
Jannik Sinner tops off dream year as Italy retain Davis Cup title
World No 1 seals 2-0 triumph over NetherlandsBerrettini beat Van de Zandschulp in first matchThe rise of Italian men’s tennis has been forecast by many for years as a special generation of young, talented players gradually climbed towards the top of the game. It is fair to say that they have arrived. One year on from their second ever triumph in the competition, Italy won the Davis Cup for a second straight year by defeating the Netherlands 2-0 in Malaga.In a rematch of Italy’s group-stage victory in September, Matteo Berrettini opened the tie with a dominant 6-4, 6-2 win over Botic van de Zandschulp, providing the perfect platform for Jannik Sinner, the world No 1. After edging a tough opening set against an impressive Tallon Griekspoor, Sinner opened up his shoulders and marched to a 7-6 (2), 6-2 victory. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 19:11:23
Southampton show signs of hope despite indefensible self-destruction | Simon Burnton
Kamikaze defending aided Liverpool’s win but evolution of Dibling and Harwood-Bellis will be one to witnessFor all that most people would always have considered the result an inevitability, there was little that was predictable about this game. Even once Liverpool took control in the final half-hour there rarely seemed any sense to its shifts in momentum. Like a leaf in a windstorm for long periods it tumbled gently in no particular direction, before zigging and zagging through a series of sudden, unexpected and often inexplicable turns. It was an extraordinary match in a bewildering and often underwhelming way, stuffed with a combination of the surprising and the indefensible.Two goals came from centre-backs giving the ball away, two from the penalty spot, one from an inexplicable handball, one (scored by the goalkeeper’s team) from a goalkeeping fumble, another from the same keeper not so much coming for the ball as going for a stroll in its general direction. Goals are generally considered the high points of a game of football; here, with one wonderful exception, the opposite was true. “My overriding feeling is frustration that the goals were so poor,” Russell Martin said. “If they produce a moment of magic you can maybe accept it a bit more but the quality of the goals was so bad. So bad.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 18:44:39
European football: Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham on target as Real cruise
Madrid beat Leganés to move four points off BarcelonaLukaku takes Napoli back to top spot in Serie AKylian Mbappé ended his goal drought and England’s Jude Bellingham scored too as Real Madrid thrashed Leganés 3-0 in La Liga on Sunday.Leganés’ defence kept Real at bay in the first half but the visitors took the lead three minutes before the break when Vinícius Jr teed up Mbappé, who slotted home for seventh league goal this season. Real enjoyed most of the possession in the second half and the Uruguayan midfielder Federico Valverde scored with a powerful low free-kick after Bellingham had been fouled at the 66th minute. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 20:04:37
Leicester sack manager Steve Cooper after five months in charge
Former Forest boss replaced Enzo Maresca in summerFoxes’ 2-1 defeat at home to Chelsea is his last matchLeicester City sacked Steve Cooper as manager on Sunday after just five months in charge. Leicester, promoted last season, are 16th in the Premier League, outside the relegation zone, but the hierarchy have been left unconvinced by performances, with player friction also a factor behind the scenes.Leicester, whose players return to training on Tuesday following a home defeat to former manager Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea on Saturday, intend to make a quick appointment, ideally by the weekend, mindful of a trio of key games against Brentford, West Ham and Brighton across the next fortnight. Cooper leaves them two points above the drop zone after two wins from 12 matches. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 15:58:15
England’s Ellie Kildunne named World Rugby women’s player of the year
Full-back was top try-scorer in last season’s Six NationsSouth Africa’s Pieter-Steph Du Toit wins men’s awardEngland and Harlequins full-back Ellie Kildunne has been named World Rugby women’s player of the year. The 25-year-old was top try-scorer during last season’s Six Nations, when England won the Grand Slam, claiming nine tries and winning player of the championship. And her thrilling attacking style has made her a genuine box-office talent in the women’s game.She becomes the latest England player to win the award, following the likes of Marlie Packer (2023), Zoe Aldcroft (2021), Emily Scarratt (2019) and Sarah Hunter (2016). Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 22:32:53
Uruguay election: opposition centre-left figure Yamandu Orsi wins presidential runoff
Former history teacher says the ‘horizon is brightening’ as all political rivals pledged to work together to move the country forwardCentre-left opposition candidate Yamandu Orsi secured victory in Uruguay’s presidential election, official results showed on Sunday, with 97% of votes tallied, ousting the conservative governing coalition and making the South American nation the latest to rebuke the incumbent party in a year of landmark elections.Yamandu Orsi, the pre-election favourite by a few points, secured 49.77% of the vote to conservative Alvaro Delgado’s 45.94%, official results showed. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 03:19:34
Storm Bert: UK braced for further disruption – live updates
More than 200 flood alerts remain in place for England and Wales with travel issues set to continueA row is brewing in Pontypridd, where residents say they were not given enough warning of the impending storm, and that local services weren’t prepared.One local person told the BBC “ there was no preemption of it by our council, our local authorities. We feel they’ve really, really dropped the ball on this one.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 08:12:10
Blackout risk warning as scorching temperatures forecast for parts of NSW
Power supplies will become tight in New South Wales and Queensland this week, with parts of western Sydney tipped to approach 40CFollow our Australia politics live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastPower supplies will become “tight” in New South Wales and Queensland later this week as the season’s first major heatwave coincides with outages at big coal-fired power stations.Parts of western Sydney are forecast to approach 40C on Tuesday and Wednesday during a pre-summer hot spell spanning a week of 30C-plus days. Heatwave conditions in eastern parts of NSW will be in the low- to severe-intensity range, the Bureau of Meteorology said.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:40:58
Wicked slays Gladiator II in ticket sales duel as new films boost box office
Combined $270m of worldwide ticket sales for Ridley Scott and Jon Chu movies leads to one of 2024’s busiest weekendsWith a combined $270m in worldwide ticket sales, Wicked and Gladiator II breathed fresh life into a box office that has struggled lately, leading to one of the busiest moviegoing weekends of the year.Jon M Chu’s lavish big-budget musical Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, debuted with $114m domestically and $164.2m globally for Universal Pictures, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That made it the third-biggest opening weekend of the year, behind only Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2. It’s also a record for a Broadway musical adaptation.Wicked, $114m.Gladiator II, $55.5m.Red One, $13.3m.Bonhoeffer: Pastor Spy Assassin, $5.1m.Venom: The Last Dance, $4m. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 00:12:53
Carnival cruise line emitted more CO2 in 2023 than Scotland’s biggest city – report
World’s largest cruise line named Europe’s most climate-polluting, despite investing millions in cleaner technologiesThe world’s largest cruise line company is responsible for producing more carbon dioxide in Europe than the city of Glasgow, a report has found.Analysis by the Transport and Environment (T&E) campaign group, provided to the Guardian, found Carnival to be the most climate-polluting cruise company sailing in Europe in 2023. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:31
Foreign firms taking billions of litres from UK aquifers to make bottled water
Coca-Cola extracts largest amount of freshwater of any drinks company in England, FoI request finds‘It’s not drought - it’s looting’: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking waterForeign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from British aquifers to sell as bottled water, the Guardian can reveal.Coca-Cola extracts the largest amount of freshwater of any drinks company in England, the data obtained through freedom of information legislation shows. It has a licence to extract 1.59bn litres of water a year from boreholes in Sidcup, Kent for its soft drinks. On top of that, it has the right to take 377m litres for its bottled water brands Glaceau Smartwater and Abbey Well from Morpeth in Northumberland. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 06:00:34
Italian police and social workers leave Albania after staffing empty migrant centres
Centres had been open for over a month but received just 24 asylum seekers, whose detention was deemed unlawfulDozens of Italian police officers and social workers deployed by Italy’s far-right government in migrant centres in Albania have returned home, after it emerged that the facilities, praised as a model to reduce refugee arrivals, have been empty for weeks.Just over a month after the much-publicised opening of the multimillion-euro detention centres for asylum seekers in Albania, which were supposed to receive up to 3,000 men a month, more than 50 police officers were moved back to Italy two weeks ago while dozens of social workers have left over the weekend, with their presence in Albania considered “needless”. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 13:51:42
Ministers speaking out against assisted dying ‘are giving false impression’, says peer
Labour’s Charlie Falconer says vocal opponents are leading voters to think government is against change‘Slippery slope’ fears over assisted dying have echoes of abortion debateSenior ministers who have spoken out against assisted dying are giving voters a “false impression” about the government’s position, a leading proponent of changing the law has said.Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer and former justice secretary, said opponents to the change were “getting more coverage” because ministers in favour of legalising assisted dying were “playing by the rules”. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 18:00:18
‘He was wedged like an hourglass’: rescuers describe 20-hour ordeal ending with amputation of rafter’s leg
Lithuanian tourist pack rafting on Franklin River still fighting for life in Tasmanian hospitalGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA 69-year-old Lithuanian man has been praised for his “extraordinary resilience” after emergency service workers were forced to amputate his leg during a 20-hour rescue operation in remote south-west Tasmania.The man, who remained in a critical condition in Royal Hobart hospital on Sunday evening, had been travelling with a group of 11 tourists on a multi-day rafting trip on the remote Franklin River. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 08:22:11
Iranian minister to meet European counterparts after nuclear offer rejected
Meeting comes amid fears Middle East tensions will lead Iran to redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weaponIran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, will meet his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday after the collapse of a deal last week under which Iran would have limited its uranium enrichment to 60% purity, just below the threshold to make nuclear weapons.The offer was regarded by Iran as a first step to rebuilding confidence between it and the west over what it insists is its civilian nuclear programme. There are growing fears that wider tensions in the Middle East could result in Tehran redoubling efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon and trying to declare it necessary for its national self-defence. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 14:58:36
Wicked director tells audience members to ask cinemas to turn up the volume
Jon M Chu encouraged fans to take their audio experience into their own hands, ahead of the film’s opening weekendWicked director Jon M Chu is encouraging audience members to ask their cinema to turn up the volume on his blockbuster musical, as some viewers have begun reporting sound issues.Posting on X on the evening of Wicked’s US opening, Chu wrote: “Tell your movie theater to turn it up to a 7 … I’ve gone to a couple screenings and they are more like a 6.4. If you want it the way it was intended 7 is the way.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:04:13
‘I do both the Beyoncé and the Jay-Z parts of Crazy In Love’: Edith Bowman’s honest playlist
The radio presenter belts out Beyoncé at karaoke and is liable to blub to Max Richter, but how did an indie gig in north London change her life?The first single I bought When Doves Cry by Prince on seven-inch from a little shop called The Lighthouse in Anstruther. Being a small fishing village, we didn’t have a record shop. We had a shop that sold many things, like a dusty cowboy town where you’d buy your groceries, a gun and beer – but it sold lightbulbs, plugs and records.The first song I fell in love with When I started dating my husband [Editors singer Tom Smith], he would sing Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right by Bob Dylan as a vocal warmup in the sound check. I’d get this kind of lovely private gig time and time again. Whenever I hear it, my heart bursts back to that first flurry of falling in love. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:36
See the light pour through: how art can free us from the exhaustion of smartphone addiction
As tech giants hook us into endless scrolling, we are becoming less engaged, less creative, less connected, less human. Art reminds us to look outwards at the things that truly matterHow often do you look up at the sky, rather than down at the black mirror on which you might be reading this column? Will you read to the end of this page? How many tabs have you opened today? If you’re on a train, how many people are interacting with fellow humans rather than looking at their phones? I am not one to judge. I am as addicted to the dopamine hit as anyone. But lately, with the world becoming more disillusioned and divided, it seems more urgent than ever to look outwards rather than in, and to pay attention in the most valuable ways.I was reminded of this when seeing Bed Rot, a tapestry by US-based artist Qualeasha Wood, at Salon 94 in New York. It shows a woman slumped, drained, or “bed rotting”, with bright white eyes seemingly lit by her screen. Framing her are numerous tabs with slogans that are emblematic of 2024 culture (“brat summer”, for instance) but somehow already feel outdated, lost in the speed of our internet-fuelled world. She looks exhausted. I feel exhausted looking at her. And her malaise is a common one. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 08:00:35
Britain faces ‘talent drain’ of visual artists as earnings fall by 40% since 2010
Report says funding cuts, inflation and rise of AI contributing to median income dropping to £12,500Earnings for visual artists in Britain have plunged by 40% since 2010, with experts predicting a “talent drain” from the UK because EU countries offer more attractive working environments.A report commissioned by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), found that visual artists had a median annual income of £12,500, with 80% of the 1,200 creatives surveyed saying their earnings were “unstable”, or “very unstable”. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:01:30
Downfall by Nadine Dorries review – a grubby business
The former Tory MP’s sequel to The Plot – her story of the ousting of Boris Johnson – is absurd and, for all the talk of Tory members, pretty dullNadine Dorries’s last book, The Plot, was about the ousting of Boris Johnson less than three years after the landslide that saw him become prime minister, and in it she made various strange allegations, chief among them the fact that his fall was primarily the work of a secretive cabal of Tory fixers. Known as “the Movement”, its members include Johnson’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings, the ex-MP Michael Gove, and a shadowy Conservative prime ministerial aide called Dougie Smith, of whom only one photograph exists and about whom details are scarce. Why did these men commit this act of what she calls regicide? Was it because Johnson was a liability? No, and you should put all those lockdown parties from your mind. According to Dorries, they were working, for reasons that remain foggy, at the behest of a mysterious character she referred to only as Dr No, after the Bond villain.Dorries’s new book is styled as a sequel to The Plot, and thus promises quite a lot to anyone who was even vaguely interested in the above. “I have to finish the story!” she writes, as she prepares once again to Zoom with some excitable Westminster snouts (this time, her subject is the disastrous occupation of Number 10 by Rishi Sunak). Will Nadine track Dr No to his private island, and attempt to do something awful to him using a drug-laced cigarette and a tarantula? Or will she just tell us his real name at last? Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:35
La Ricerca review – paean to man who uses stone to make sense of the world
Reverential documentary reveals how Luigi Lineri has dedicated his life to creating a temple of rock For decades, Luigi Lineri has toiled along the Adige river in northern Italy where he has amassed an astonishingly vast treasure trove: rocks. A research endeavour, an artistic undertaking and even a form of time travel, this beautiful quest defies rigid categorisation. Guided by Lineri’s indefatigable passion, Giuseppe Petruzzellis’s meticulous documentary lends an ear to what the stones have to say.Using title cards of white text over a black screen, the film divides Lineri’s collection into a myriad of themes. While some pebbles point to the technical evolution of tools in prehistoric times, others bear the artistic traces left behind by human creativity. There’s a streak of the existential and the metaphysical as well. From egg-shaped relics to stones that resemble genitalia, the origins of life on Earth are wondrously embedded into these inanimate objects. In making a home for these wandering pieces of history, Lineri movingly describes the space as a shrine, a dedication rich with spiritual significance. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:00:34
Can you solve it? Brain-training for Martians
Do you have alien intelligence?Hungary acquired a reputation for brilliance in maths and physics in the middle of last century, thanks to scientists like John von Neumann, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.The stellar cohort become known as the Martians. The Hungarians, so the joke went, were evidence that superior alien intelligence had already landed on Earth. Even their language was impenetrable. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 07:12:40
‘Oz as a high-fashion, elitist society’: how Wicked made musicals chic
The high-couture styles of the film version of the hit show reflect a trend of designer daring on the stageMusicals used to be associated with glee club kids more likely to be wearing jazz shoes than anything cutting edge from the catwalks. But with the film version of Wicked – which was released this weekend and was expected to take more than $100m (£80m) at the US box office alone – promoted by global pop star Ariana Grande and actor Cynthia Erivo wearing Vivienne Westwood, Schiaparelli and Louis Vuitton, musicals are having a pitch-perfect style moment.Even before it opened, there was a glut of Wicked collaborations across skincare, haircare and hoodies – more than 400 in total, including Gap, Kipling, Crocs, H&M, Claire’s Accessories and Marks & Spencer. Fancy London department store Liberty, with its tasteful Tudor-beamed building, has teamed up with Universal Pictures to make over its windows Wicked-style. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 12:00:12
Don’t know what to buy your loved ones for Christmas? Just ask ChatGPT
Santa has a new little helper. But can an AI-powered shopping assistant really master the subtle art of gift giving?Some people love buying Christmas presents. Polly Arrowsmith starts making a note of what her friends and family like, then hunts for bargains, slowly and carefully. Vie Portland begins her shopping in January and has a theme each year, from heart mirrors to inspirational books. And Betsy Benn spent so much time thinking about presents, she ended up opening her own online gift business.How would these gift-giving experts react to a trend that is either a timesaving brainwave or an appalling corruption of the Christmas spirit: asking ChatGPT to do it for them? Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 08:00:11
All scenery and no sweat: an e-biking adventure in the New Forest
The New Forest is a haven for cycling – and whizzing through the trees on an e-bike leaves more time for ice cream and cake breaks‘No one,” says Clare, grinning broadly and handing me a cycle helmet, “comes back sweating from one of our rides.” Looking at the Super Monkey I’m about to clamber on to – a gleaming black machine, modelled rather like a Chopper bike from the 1970s, only with triple-width tyres and the (all-important) powerbox attached to the main stem – I can believe it. Synch ebikes, available to rent from Clare and Lisa at Jaunt-E Bikes, are the last word in effort-free cycling, and the best way to delve into the depths of the New Forest.It’s a grey, drizzly morning when I set off from my Brockenhurst bolthole, Cottage Lodge, cycling gingerly up the busy A337 before turning down a gravel track into the forest. At first the bike feels a bit like being on a horse – raring to go every time I put my foot down – but I soon get used to it, whizzing happily past runners and analogue cyclists, the wide, “comfort” saddle shielding me from the worst of the uneven, gravelly track. Within minutes, I’m immersed in the forest; waves of ferns rippling out beneath towering oak and beech trees. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 11:00:09
The Moon Under Water: from where did George Orwell get the name for his perfect pub?
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhat is the origin of the pub name the Moon Under Water? George Orwell adopted it to describe his “ideal of what a pub should be”, but where did he get it from? Mike Jones, by emailPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to [email protected]. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 14:01:12
Like a luxury spa – for £20: where to enjoy Britain’s Turkish baths revival
In 1900, there were 600 Turkish baths in Britain and Ireland. Today, only a handful survive. We enjoy a revived hammam in Newcastle and take a look at 10 more around the countryMy sister and I are lying on slabs like flounders in a fishmonger’s. Instead of a bed of ice, though, we’re stretched out on heated marble. We move between three hot rooms, each resembling little chapels with vaulted ceilings, chatting quietly in the cooler one, applying face and hair masks in the middle one, and simply lying still, sweating, in the hottest one. Later, we will be scrubbed and massaged. In between, we cool off under a rain-mist shower, or retire to a bed in our own private mahogany-panelled booth beneath a glazed dome.It sounds like a luxury spa, with prices to match. In fact, we’re at a century-old public bathhouse. The City Baths in Newcastle reopened in April after an £8m restoration – and a decade-long campaign. A two‑hour Turkish bath session here costs about £20, which includes a swim in the pool upstairs. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 08:00:05
Share your experience of lightning strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean
We’d like to hear about the impact of dramatic lightning strikes in the region. How have you been affected?Scientists have warned for years that rising temperatures across the planet are likely to cause more lightning. The Caribbean is among those regions that have experienced an increase in damaging strikes over the past two decades, according to experts.Have you been affected by dramatic lightning strikes in the Caribbean? Do you have experiences or pictures of lightning impact in Jamaica, Belize, Barbados or any other country in the region? Or perhaps in Latin America? Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-20 12:00:05
Cryptocurrency traders: share what got you into crypto, and how you feel about recent developments
We’d like to hear from people who have bought cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ethereum as well as smaller currencies how they have been faringIt’s been an eventful few days for the cryptocurrency market, with the price of bitcoin having risen above $87,000 for the first time amid traders’ hopes that cryptocurrencies will boom in a favourable regulatory environment when Donald Trump returns to the White House.Bitcoin reached a record high of $87,198, before slipping back slightly on Monday. The price more than doubled from about $37,000 12 months ago. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-13 12:10:42
Tell us your favourite podcast of 2024
We would like to hear about your favourite new podcast you’ve been listening to this year and whyWe would like to hear about your favourite new podcast you’ve been listening to this year and why. Let us know and we’ll run a selection of your recommendations in December. Tell us your favourite using the form below. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-21 12:48:34
Share your thoughts about the collapse of the German coalition government and the snap election
We’re interested to hear how people feel about the collapse of German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, and which issues may decide their vote at the general electionThe collapse of Germany’s three-party ruling coalition has triggered a snap election that is to take place in February 2025.The German government collapsed after the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, unexpectedly sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, during a row over the 2025 budget, plunging Europe’s largest economy into political disarray, after months of bitter infighting that has contributed to the administration’s growing unpopularity amid a stagnating German economy. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-13 14:55:48
‘You get desensitised to it’: how social media fuels fear of violence
Young people in Birmingham attest that violent content on apps is having a real-world impactIt took about 90 seconds for Rianna Montaque to see violence on her X account: a fight in a restaurant that escalated into a full-on brawl with chairs smashed over heads and bodies sprawling.The “Gang_Hits” account has plenty more clips like that – shootings, beatings, people being run down by cars. It is part of a grim genre of content which is often promoted by algorithms so it pops up in young people’s social media feeds unbidden. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 06:00:34
Trump’s White House is filling with alleged sexual abusers ... led by him
As the far right celebrates a win for their gender, a raft of people accused of misconduct is named for the cabinet Donald Trump was found civilly liable last year for the defamation and sexual abuse of the writer E Jean Carroll - just one of the more than 27 women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. In January 2025, he will again be president of the United States – the first to take office with a court-adjudicated history of sex crimes.And it seems he’s eager to pack the White House with people just like him. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 13:00:13
Trump depends on the EU and UK to act as peacemakers more than he thinks
The US doesn’t need to spend more on Ukraine. Britain can bring funding to the table – and help Trump reboot alliancesWith Donald Trump the very meaning of words is up for negotiation. What does he really mean when he promises to “build a wall”? When he pledges to end the Russo-Ukrainian war in one day?His supporters say they don’t take him literally but seriously – but who decides what “serious” is? The very ambiguity can be part of Trump’s appeal. There’s something exhilarating in the sense one is in an exclusive negotiation with the president to define reality. It’s as if he’s welcoming you backstage from the reality show of politics to the discreet board room where meaning is made. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 05:00:01
Theatrics, hatred and Linda McMahon: how pro wrestling explains Donald Trump
The ex-WWE CEO and likely incoming education secretary doesn’t seem like a threat. That’s what makes her oneDespite her background in professional wrestling, Linda McMahon is not known for bombast. Indeed, she’s terrible at it: in the many years during which the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO would make occasional appearances in her company’s programming as a version of herself, she was always derided by fans for her lack of charisma and wobbly speaking voice.The most notable thing she did in any of the storylines was pretend to be comatose in a wheelchair while her husband, the vastly more explosive Vince McMahon, sexually harassed one of his female wrestlers in a skit. Linda won’t be winning an Emmy anytime soon. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 16:00:15
Fires, first aid and guns: meet the Finnish women training for war with Russia
Anxious Finns are learning how to survive in the wild in preparation for an invasion by their hostile neighbour It is Friday night on a forested military base in western Finland. A group of women dressed in camouflage with matching purple beanie hats are sat in a dark tent discussing how their perspectives have changed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.“I didn’t think it was a real threat that Russia would attack us,” says Sari, 42, who works in sales and lives in a nearby town. But then, she adds: “They attacked Ukraine. I saw that it is possible that we are next.” Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 20:13:22
‘It’s not drought - it’s looting’: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking water
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and one group is profiting from these extremes: the water-grabbing multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for it in bottlesAfter catastrophic floods engulfed Valencia last month, killing more than 200 people, it might seem counterintuitive to think about water shortages. But as the torrents of filthy water swept through towns and villages, people were left without electricity, food supplies – and drinking water. “It was brutal: cars, chunks of machinery, big stones, even dead bodies were swept along in the water. It gushed into the ground floor of buildings, into little shops, bakeries, hairdressers, the English school, bars: all were destroyed. This was climate change for real, climate change in capital letters,” says Josep de la Rubia of Valencia’s Ecologists in Action, describing the scene in the satellite towns south of the Valencian capital.In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of people were reliant on emergency tankers of water or donations of bottled water from citizen volunteers. Within a fortnight, the authorities had reconnected the tap water of 90% of the 850,000 people in affected areas, but all were advised to boil it before drinking it or to use bottled water. Across the region, 100 sewage treatment plants were damaged; in some areas, human waste seeped into flood waters, dead animals were swept into rivers and sodden rubbish and debris piled up. Valencia is on the brink of a sanitation crisis. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 11:00:40
The truth about salt: how to avoid one of the world’s biggest hidden killers
Most of us consume far too much, which can lead to high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. But there are some simple ways to retrain your palate and reduce your intakeLast Tuesday, I bought lunch on the go. I fancied something hot, tasty but healthy, so I chose a vegan ramen from the Japanese-inspired chain Wasabi. The soup was packed with turmeric noodles, vegetable gyozas, mushrooms, bean sprouts, pak choi, pickled ginger and sesame seeds, in a soy and miso broth. It was delicious. In fact, it was so delicious, I was suspicious. I checked out its nutritional information online. Only 342 calories, low in saturated fat … Aha! Salt: 5.07g a portion.The World Health Organization recommends that adults eat less than 5g of salt a day. One noodle soup had exceeded my entire daily intake. (The UK limit is a little more generous at 6g, but even that wasn’t far off.) Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 14:00:13
‘It’s about political will’: is the Foreign Office failing Britons detained abroad?
Relatives and campaigners hope Labour will usher in a step-change in the handling of hostage casesLammy urged to keep promise of envoy to help free Britons held abroadGurpreet Singh Johal is sitting in a London hotel lobby the night before he is due to meet David Lammy.He recalls in his soft Scottish burr that this will be the fifth UK foreign secretary he will have seen in his quest to secure the release of his brother, Jagtar, who has been detained in Indian prisons for seven years, with the case making virtually no progress. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 12:29:36
Remember the global financial crisis? Well, high-risk securities are back
The shadow banking sector is trying its hand at trading in debt-based products such as collateralised loan obligationsWhen Margot Robbie made a surprise cameo in the 2015 film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short, she did more to educate the general population about the risks of securitisation than most financial experts.The Australian actor’s brief monologue, notoriously delivered from a champagne bubble bath, explained how banks were bundling up their growing cache of risky sub-prime mortgages into investable bonds, before slicing them up and selling them off for profit. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 07:00:08
Eve Babitz and Joan Didion may be dead. But their feud isn’t
A new book on the Los Angeles authors leaves no petty stone unturned as it explores their fraught friendshipJoan Didion, the original girlboss of American letters, keeps inspiring new takedowns. Critiquing Didion’s racism, the writer Myriam Gurba compared her to an onion: “She’s very white, very crisp, and she makes people cry.” An anonymous woman in a Los Angeles bar called Didion “that lady from Sacramento”. (Didion might have fooled the New York Times, but Angelenos know she wasn’t from Los Angeles.)Eve Babitz’s recent takedown of Didion might be the most extraordinary, though, because it has been issued from beyond the grave. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 13:00:46
A cool flame: how Gaia theory was born out of a secret love affair – podcast
Scientist James Lovelock gave humanity new ways to think about our home planet – but some of his biggest ideas were the fruit of a passionate collaboration. By Jonathan Watts Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 05:00:34
A mystery in Finnish Lapland, and what it means for the climate crisis – podcast
Biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield travels to Finnish Lapland to investigate the disappearance of its carbon sink, and its implications for the fight against global heatingFinland has one of the most ambitious carbon-neutral goals in the world: to reach net zero by 2035. If this feels like a bold pledge, there’s good reason for it: two-thirds of the country is covered in forests, that have for decades absorbed more carbon dioxide than they have put out.But recently, something has changed: Finland’s carbon sink is no longer working. In fact, in barely over a decade, its forests and peatlands have become a net emitter of carbon dioxide … with devastating consequences for the country’s climate goals. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-25 03:00:28
Jacob Rees-Mogg on abortion, religion and reality TV; Marina Hyde on Musk vs Trump Jr; inheritance inequity; and teenage love – podcast
Marina Hyde asks us to spare a sob for Don Jr, replaced in Daddy’s affections by Elon Musk. The Bank of Mum and Dad – the unspoken dynamic behind society’s growing inequality of ‘inheritocracy’. ‘I’ve been called worse than a Nazi’: Simon Hattenstone meets Jacob Rees-Mogg. And psychologist Lucy Foulkes on why we should take teenage love more seriously Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 05:00:33
‘You tried to tell yourself I wasn’t real’: what happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? – podcast
In avatar therapy, a clinician gives voice to their patients’ inner demons. For some of the participants in a new trial, the results have been astounding. By Jenny Kleeman Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-22 05:00:05
James Carville on where he thinks the Democrats went wrong – podcast
Everyone in US politics has an opinion on why the Democrats lost the election, and finger-pointing within the party is rife. As the debate rages, Jonathan Freedland will be speaking to various experts about what the party got wrong – and how it can bounce back.This week, he meets James Carville, the veteran political strategist who helped get Bill Clinton elected twiceArchive: Pennebaker Associates, McEttinger Films, Cyclone Films, CNN, CBS News, MSNBC, PBS Newshour, BBC News Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-22 05:00:03
How having babies became so political - video
The pronatalist movement in the US is gathering pace once again, rekindled by Silicon Valley personalities and hard-right conservatives who are becoming increasingly vocal about whether or not women are having enough babies. But it's not just in the US, some governments in other countries have launched marketing campaigns encouraging people to have more children, while others have offered financial incentives. But while many of these policies claim to be about halting population decline, there are other factors at play. Josh Toussaint-Strauss interrogates efforts around the world to boost birth rates, as well as the underlying political motivations, from bodily autonomy to immigrationBirthrates are plummeting worldwide. Can governments turn the tide?When desperate measures to persuade women to have children fail, it’s time for fresh thinking Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-21 12:33:44
Drone footage shows Delhi cloaked in thick haze of toxic smog – video
Pollution levels in the Indian capital have soared to their highest levels this year, forcing schools and offices to close and cloaking the city in thick brown smog. In some parts of the city, a live air quality ranking by IQAir put pollution levels at more than 30 times the maximum level deemed healthy. The catastrophic levels of pollution have led to numerous emergency measures, including most schools being closed and lessons moved online. The smog arrives annually as the weather in the north of India gets colder, trapping toxic pollutants from the tens of millions of cars on the road, as well as from rubbish fires, construction and factory emissions. Experts say the toxic air quality is reducing life expectancy in the city by an average of seven yearsPollution in Delhi hits record high, cloaking city in smog Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-22 11:51:49
'World's most expensive banana' fetches $US5.2m at auction – video
Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped ‘banana’ artwork fetches US$5.2m at Sotheby’s auction in New York. The artwork, titled Comedian, debuted in 2019 as an edition of three, where its US$120,000 price tag made headlines worldwide. Its new owner has purchased the banana through Sotheby's China office and will receive a banana, a roll of duct tape, a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to install the work► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTubeMaurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana artwork fetches US$5.2m at New York auction Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-21 01:57:07
Atacms: what are the missiles Ukraine has fired into Russia for the first time?
American and Ukrainian officials have confirmed Kyiv employed US-made Atacms missiles to strike targets within Russia. The Kremlin stated that six missiles were launched at the town of Karachev, with fragments from one reportedly causing a significant explosion.In response, Russia has announced it is adjusting its nuclear doctrine. The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would interpret any attack against it carried out by a non-nuclear state using weapons supplied by a nuclear state as a joint assault. But what exactly are Atacms, and why has their deployment unsettled Russia so deeply?Atacms: what are the missiles Ukraine has fired into Russia for first time?Russia-Ukraine war live Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-20 16:44:49
Vladimir Shklyarov: a look back at the career of the acclaimed Russian ballet dancer – video
Born in St Petersburg in 1985, Shklyarov joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 2003 and became its principal dancer – the highest-ranking position in a ballet company – in 2011. During his 20-year career, Shklyarov starred in productions of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He performed all over the world, including with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the Royal Opera House in London. Shklyarov has died at the age of 39 after falling from the fifth floor of a building, a spokesperson for the Mariinsky Theatre told the news outlet FontankaVladimir Shklyarov, Russian ballet star, dies aged 39 after falling from building Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-18 13:17:09
How the unrest unfolded in Amsterdam – video timeline
Conflicting reports emerged after violence erupted in Amsterdam around a Uefa Europa League football match between the Dutch club Ajax and Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv. The Guardian has analysed footage posted across social media to try to construct a timeline and understand what led to the clashes. For 24 hours, tensions rose across the city in what the mayor, Femke Halsema, called a 'toxic cocktail of antisemitism, football hooliganism and anger over the war in Palestine and Israel and other parts of the Middle East'‘Toxic cocktail’ led to Amsterdam violence, mayor says Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-15 07:25:50
A monkey festival and stormy seas: photos of the weekend
The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 14:58:10
The big picture: earthbound reality at the International Space Station landing site in Kazakhstan
Andrew McConnell’s shot of a young scrap collector at the remote spot where astronauts return from space captures a curious juxtapositionThe photographer Andrew McConnell first went to Kazakhstan in 2015, to witness what the Earth’s primary space portal looked like on the ground. A particular corner of the remote steppe-land, near a village called Kenjebai-Samai, was where, every three months, astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station fell to earth, having been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome 400 miles to the south. McConnell had spent much of the previous years working in war zones and was keen to focus on something more life-affirming.He discovered a curious landscape that was both on the frontier of human exploration and unchanged for centuries. Over a dozen visits in the subsequent years, McConnell became used to the rhythm of the landings. He would sleep out on the steppe in a tent with the ground crew of the Russian space agency; on hearing the explosion that heralded the capsule separating in the sky above, they would drive out over the wasteland to meet it as it landed – a vehicle no bigger than a family car.Some Worlds Have Two Suns by Andrew McConnell is published by Gost (£60) Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-24 07:00:04
A nostalgic photographic road trip across Australia – in pictures
When photographer Trent Mitchell was on the road looking for surf all over Australia he’d throw a couple of rolls of film in the bag and snap pictures here and there. He focused on scenes that reminded him of childhood road trips, ones he couldn’t get at home or had a surreal feeling to them.After collating the images into a fun zine-like exhibition catalogue, he realised there was a strong base to work from and the idea to publish a book was born.Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana artwork fetches US$5.2m at New York auction Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 23:00:06
We love: fashion fixes for the week ahead – in pictures
Upcycled tea towel ties, Helmut Newton’s Berlin and cosy knits Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 23:55:06
We shall satirise him on the beaches… Churchill through the eyes of cartoonists – in pictures
In one wartime image, Winston Churchill is portrayed as a dragonslayer; in another, a gun-toting gangster. Later, he appears old and dejected, overdue for retirement. The cartoons, on show in a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London, show a multitude of Churchills, reflecting how he was seen in different countries and at different times, from 1909 onwards. “There was never a consensus view of him,” says curator Kate Clements. “Some of the depictions were heavily critical and even grotesque”, while others “depict his determined nature and portray him as a British figurehead”. Clements hopes the exhibition will “add another layer to our visitors’ understanding of this complex individual” and show “how satirical cartoons played a part in shaping perceptions of Churchill during his lifetime and beyond”.Churchill in Cartoons: Satirising a Statesman is at the Imperial War Museum, London from Friday to 23 February 2025 Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-23 17:00:02
Elegant, quirky and unique: New Zealand architecture awards 2024 – in pictures
Winners were chosen by a panel of architects and are spread across 11 categories, including housing, commercial, heritage, interior and international architecture. Several unusual projects, including a church refurbishment in Wellington and a visitor centre in Nepal, received awards. Continue reading...
Published: 2024-11-22 18:00:19
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