The Guardian |
- Joe Biden dismisses bad polling and says domestic agenda set to pass
- Jen Psaki, White House press secretary to Joe Biden, tests positive for Covid
- We’re in uncharted territory for the world’s climate, UN says
- Southwest Airlines investigates pilot’s use of ‘Let’s go Brandon’ anti-Biden jibe
- Huma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assault
- FBI failed to act on tips of likely violence ahead of Capitol attack – report
- Ruling party of Fumio Kishida wins comfortable victory in Japanese election
- Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai goes on trial over Tiananmen vigil
- Republican Adam Kinzinger: I’ll fight Trumpism ‘cancer’ outside Congress
- Al Franken rules out Senate run against Gillibrand, who led push to remove him
- Handball federation changes uniform rules after pressure over ‘sexist’ bikini rule
- The anchor-outs: San Francisco’s bohemian boat dwellers fight for their way of life
- Astros overcome four-run deficit to keep World Series alive with Game 5 victory
- Best bird a bat: tiny flying mammal wins New Zealand bird of the year competition
- California’s landscapers to bear brunt of ban on gas-powered lawnmowers
- ‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassment
- Judge Judy: the $440m reality star’s new show is … the same as her last one
- Maya Hawke: ‘My parents didn’t want to have me do bit-parts in their movies’
- Succession’s Nicholas Braun: ‘I feel better being honest than hiding’
- Text anxiety: why too many messages make us want to throw our phones at the wall
- The battle over a vast New York park: is this climate resilience or capitalism?
- The road to net zero: Aberdeen looks to a future without oil
- They would walk 500 miles: meet the Cop26 pilgrims who got to Glasgow on foot
- Reasons to be hopeful: the climate solutions available now
- Eco-anxiety over climate crisis suffered by all ages and classes
- Another reckoning over sexual assault in US colleges is starting. Officials must listen | Moira Donegan
- The people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised? | Akin Olla
- How was Larry Nassar able to get away with his terrible crimes? | Deborah Tuerkheimer
- Politicians talk about net zero – but not the sacrifices we must make to get there | John Harris
- Halloween shows us you can’t keep a good ghost down. And nor should you | Stephanie Merritt
- Trevor Siemian comes off bench to help Saints shock Tom Brady’s Buccaneers
- Nuno Espírito Santo’s Tottenham future in doubt after crisis talks with Levy
- Donald Trump chops with Atlanta Braves fans before World Series game
- Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic non-committal over Australian Open
- Atlético Madrid’s return to Liverpool evokes eerily grim memories
- Slick West Ham take advantage of Konsa’s red card and subdue Aston Villa
- Coronavirus news live: Australia reopens international borders; France records jump in Covid hospitalisations
- ‘I’ve got to get to my daughter, I’ve got to hold her’: families reunite at Sydney airport after international border reopens
- China rejects US intelligence report on Covid origins as ‘political and false’
- The regrets of the unvaccinated: why Covid-bereaved families are speaking out
- Mark Gatiss: ‘I’m currently very, very ashamed of being English’
- Last Night in Soho review – a deliciously twisted journey back to London’s swinging past
- Too Famous by Michael Wolff review – a sneering apologist for the notorious
- Want horror for Halloween? Critics pick music, books, games and more to help
- Gothic becomes Latin America’s go-to genre as writers turn to the dark side
- The Rescue review – riveting Thai cave rescue documentary
- He played Martin Luther King. Next up: a fiery white rightwinger
- ‘My Elizabeth Barrett Browning film needs a woman’s touch – but where are all the female directors?’
- Italy’s father of tiramisu dies aged 93
- ‘They would help me write, as cats do, by climbing on to the keyboard’: Margaret Atwood on her feline familiars
- Flight might be a fantasy, but to my three-year-old, a bus beats a plane any day
- American Airlines cancels around 1,600 flights due to weather and staff shortage
- Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidency
- US would only quit Iran nuclear deal if Tehran were to renege, Biden pledges
- Macron accuses Australian PM of lying over submarine deal
- Brazilian police kill 25 suspects allegedly part of bank robbery gang
- Reclusive Taliban supreme leader makes rare public appearance
- Arrest after man dressed as Joker injures 17 in Tokyo train attack
- Greece lets boat packed with Afghan refugees dock after four days at sea
- Sudan coup protesters return to barricades on seventh day of unrest
- Man dies after being gored at bull-running festival in Spain
- Halloween hijinks and climate action: the weekend’s best photos
- The big picture: incarcerated gang members in El Salvador
- Cop26 day 0: Glasgow prepares – in pictures
| Joe Biden dismisses bad polling and says domestic agenda set to pass Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:35 PM PDT
Joe Biden sought to brush off concerns about bad polling on Sunday, telling reporters he expected Democrats to overcome internal differences and pass both his domestic spending plan and a bipartisan infrastructure deal in the week to come. Earlier, an NBC News poll found that 54% of US adults disapproved of Biden's performance, down six points since August, a period in which the president's domestic agenda has stalled amid intra-party division. Continue reading... |
| Jen Psaki, White House press secretary to Joe Biden, tests positive for Covid Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:56 PM PDT Psaki, who did not travel with the president to Europe, says her last contact with Biden was on Tuesday Jen Psaki, Joe Biden's White House press secretary, said on Sunday she had tested positive for Covid-19. Psaki, 42, did not travel with Biden to Rome for this week's G20 summit. The president is also due to travel to Glasgow for the Cop26 climate talks. Biden has been accompanied in Europe by his principal deputy press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Continue reading... |
| We’re in uncharted territory for the world’s climate, UN says Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:00 AM PDT Report sets out heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc this year The climate crisis has driven the planet into "uncharted territory", with far-reaching repercussions for today's and future generations, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization. It said the Cop26 summit was a "make-or-break opportunity to put us back on track". The WMO's State of the Global Climate report shows that the last seven years have been the hottest seven years on record, and that accelerating sea level rise hit new heights in 2021. It also sets out the heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc across the planet this year and is intended to inform Cop26 negotiations. Continue reading... |
| Southwest Airlines investigates pilot’s use of ‘Let’s go Brandon’ anti-Biden jibe Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:01 PM PDT
Southwest Airlines announced an internal investigation after a pilot was reported to have signed off a message to passengers by saying: "Let's go Brandon." The apparent non-sequitur is in fact a rightwing meme, based on a NBC sportscaster's apparent mishearing of a chant of "Fuck Joe Biden" by a crowd at a Nascar circuit in Alabama at the start of October. Continue reading... |
| Huma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assault Posted: 31 Oct 2021 07:13 AM PDT
In her first interview to promote her new book, Huma Abedin said she did not think an unnamed senator sexually assaulted her when he kissed her at his apartment, some time in the mid-2000s. She also said she would "take to her grave" her part in the emails investigation which cost Hillary Clinton dearly in the 2016 presidential election, which the candidate lost to Donald Trump, though she knew it was not all her fault. Continue reading... |
| FBI failed to act on tips of likely violence ahead of Capitol attack – report Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:32 PM PDT
The FBI and other key law enforcement agencies failed to act on a host of tips and other information ahead of 6 January that signaled a potentially violent event might unfold that day at the US Capitol, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. Among information that came officials' way in the weeks before what turned into a riot as lawmakers met to certify the results of the presidential election was a 20 December tip to the FBI that supporters of Donald Trump were discussing online how to sneak guns into Washington to "overrun" police and arrest members of Congress, according to internal bureau documents obtained by the Post. Continue reading... |
| Ruling party of Fumio Kishida wins comfortable victory in Japanese election Posted: 31 Oct 2021 06:45 PM PDT Conservative LDP along with coalition partner Komeito retain control of parliament, defying expectations Japan's ruling conservative party defied expectations in Sunday's general election, with a comfortable victory that will boost the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as he attempts to steer the economy out of the coronavirus pandemic. Kishida's Liberal Democratic party secured 261 seats in the 465-member lower house – the more powerful of Japan's two-chamber Diet – slightly down on its pre-election 276 seats. Continue reading... |
| Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai goes on trial over Tiananmen vigil Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:29 PM PDT Eight pro-democracy activists including the prominent businessman had been charged under national security laws The trial of eight pro-democracy activists, including Apple Daily newspaper founder Jimmy Lai, who were charged over their roles in an unauthorised Tiananmen vigil last year began on Monday. Lai and the seven others, including Lee Cheuk-yan, the former chairman of the now defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, face charges of organising, participating and inciting others to take part in the unauthorised candlelight vigil commemorating the bloody 1989 crackdown on protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Continue reading... |
| Republican Adam Kinzinger: I’ll fight Trumpism ‘cancer’ outside Congress Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:08 AM PDT
The Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Sunday he would fight the "cancer" of Trumpism outside the congressional GOP, after he retires from the House next year. "In the House you can fight to try to tell the truth," the Illinois representative said, speaking to ABC's This Week. "You can fight against the cancer in the Republican party of lies, of conspiracy, of dishonesty. Continue reading... |
| Al Franken rules out Senate run against Gillibrand, who led push to remove him Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:44 AM PDT New York senator led moves to push Franken out as Minnesota senator over allegations of sexual misconduct Al Franken on Sunday ruled out mounting a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York senator who four years ago led calls for his resignation as a senator from Minnesota over allegations of sexual misconduct. In a statement to Politico, Franken said: "Yes, I miss the Senate but I'm not going to run against Kirsten Gillibrand." Continue reading... |
| Handball federation changes uniform rules after pressure over ‘sexist’ bikini rule Posted: 31 Oct 2021 10:30 PM PDT
The International Handball Federation has responded to widespread accusations of sexism by changing its rules around women's uniforms to allow bike shorts and tank tops instead of bikini bottoms and crop tops. The sport's global governing body has been the subject of international pressure since July, when the European Handball Federation made headlines for imposing a €1,500 fine on the Norwegian women's beach handball team for wearing shorts like their male counterparts during the Euro 21 tournament in Bulgaria. At the time, the EHF described the shorts as "improper clothing". Continue reading... |
| The anchor-outs: San Francisco’s bohemian boat dwellers fight for their way of life Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:00 AM PDT Since the 1950s, Marin county waters have been home to a community of mariners. Now local authorities say they have to leave For decades, a group known as the "anchor-outs" enjoyed a relatively peaceful existence in a corner of the San Francisco Bay. The mariners carved out an affordable, bohemian community on the water, in a county where the median home price recently hit $1.8m. But their haven could be coming to an end – and with it, a rapidly disappearing way of life. Top: Anchor-out boats sit in Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California, last month. Bottom: Jeff Jacob Chase looks out the window of a friend's boat. Continue reading... |
| Astros overcome four-run deficit to keep World Series alive with Game 5 victory Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:23 PM PDT
Marwin Gonzalez's Game 5 hit was far softer than his drive in the World Series four years ago, but it had just as much impact. After missing the first two rounds of the postseason, he played a huge role in keeping the Houston Astros' championship quest alive. Gonzalez broke a fifth-inning tie with a two-run pinch-hit single into short left field, leading the comeback from a four-run deficit in a 9-5 win over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday night. Continue reading... |
| Best bird a bat: tiny flying mammal wins New Zealand bird of the year competition Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:19 PM PDT No stunt, say organisers, who wanted to raise awareness of the pekapeka-tou-roa, which faces the same threats as native birds In a huge upset to New Zealand birds, but a win for one of the country's only native land mammals, a bat has swooped in "by a long way" to take out the annual bird of the year competition. Forest and Bird, which runs the election, thew the bat among the pigeons as a surprise entry this year. The pekapeka-tou-roa, or long tailed bat, is one of two bats in the country and one of the rarest mammals in the world. It is as small as a thumb, and the size of a bumblebee when it is born. Continue reading... |
| California’s landscapers to bear brunt of ban on gas-powered lawnmowers Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:00 AM PDT The state's move to electric off-road engines will cut noise and pollution – but some businesses are far from happy Sometimes I wish I lived in California. It's not just the weather or In-N-Out Burgers, it's simpler than that. It's the peace and quiet I'd soon be experiencing when the state's new ban on gas-powered engines takes effect. No loud leaf blowers drowning out my Zoom calls. No lawnmowers grooming my neighbor's yard as I'm trying to concentrate. The state's governor, Gavin Newsom, in his effort to achieve 100% zero emissions, has signed a new bill that bans the sale of small off-road engines by 2024. And while I'm sure many people will welcome the less noisy electrical replacements that will soon be widely used, many small business owners in the landscaping and construction industries are not happy. Continue reading... |
| ‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassment Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT As Trump and allies falsely claim the vote was stolen, officials who uphold the election machinery say threats are the new normal Before he leaves his house to walk his dog these days, Rick Barron's 12-year-old-daughter reminds him that he needs to keep an eye out because she worries her dad could be the target of an attack. Barron, 55, is the director of voting and elections in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta and is the most populous county in Georgia. For the last year, he's been subject to a barrage of voicemails and emails with threats, including some threatening violence and death, as Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed the election was stolen. Continue reading... |
| Judge Judy: the $440m reality star’s new show is … the same as her last one Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:30 PM PDT Judy Sheindlin has moved from network television to streaming for Judy Justice, a courtroom series indistinguishable from her other one One of the enduring mysteries of the last few decades is how Judy Sheindlin became the highest-paid woman on American television. Towards the end of Judge Judy's 25-year run, Sheindlin was hauling in $47m a year (her estimated net worth is about $440m). Since the show only required her to work for 52 days a year, that meant she earned $900,000 just by showing up. And this was Judge Judy, for crying out loud. It was a televised small-claims court. It was, by its very nature, mundane and repetitious. And now it is over. Earlier this year, Sheindlin made the decision to hang up her gavel. You might not have noticed, since Judge Judy has been airing in reruns since then, and every episode is absolutely identical to every other episode. But while you or I might take this downtime as an opportunity to kick back and enjoy our mountains of unimaginable wealth, Sheindlin has not. For she already has a new show on IMDb TV. It's called Judy Justice. And if you liked Judge Judy then, oh boy, are your rock-bottom expectations about to be expertly filled. Continue reading... |
| Maya Hawke: ‘My parents didn’t want to have me do bit-parts in their movies’ Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:30 AM PDT The Stranger Things star on viral fame, the challenges of dyslexia, and convincing her actor parents she wanted to follow in their footsteps New York-born Maya Hawke, 23, began her career in modelling before making her screen debut as Jo March in the BBC's 2017 adaptation of Little Women. She was Linda "Flowerchild" Kasabian in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and plays Robin in Netflix hit Stranger Things. Hawke now stars in Mainstream, directed and written by Gia Coppola. She lives in New York and is the daughter of actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. Your new film Mainstream is a satire on viral fame. Are people too reliant on their mobile phones nowadays?  |
| Succession’s Nicholas Braun: ‘I feel better being honest than hiding’ Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:00 AM PDT He's the reluctant sex symbol who is now partying with the Clintons. But actor Nicholas Braun is only just coming to terms with his life-changing role as Cousin Greg, TV's favourite antihero in Succession. He reveals how he is learning to embrace his newfound fame Nicholas Braun arrived on Long Island by train, and then he took a car to the compound. This was three years ago. Braun had been invited to a weekend-long party at a fancy home owned by friends of the American actor Jeremy Strong, who Braun knew from the set of the Emmy Award-winning television show Succession, in which they both star. At the compound he was patted down by members of the secret service, which startled him at first, and then delighted him. (He later referred to the agents as "my boys".) As guests flashed around, Braun remembers thinking, "How is it I've ended up here, at a party in a locked-down compound that has a federal agency working the door?" And then the Clintons arrived. By this point, Braun had filmed just one series of Succession, the HBO juggernaut, which revolves around and pillories the Roy family, a venomous media dynasty in the mould of the Murdochs. (Perhaps you've heard of it.) Braun plays Greg Hirsch, a distant cousin and Roy family satellite who, as the show progresses, finds himself increasingly surrounded by powerful and prestigious people and the mucky opulence in which they operate, and becomes both seduced and confused by his new surroundings, often to comic effect. Continue reading... |
| Text anxiety: why too many messages make us want to throw our phones at the wall Posted: 31 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT We now face as many as 2,167 messages a day from multiple apps. No wonder it sometimes all gets too much When Senait Lara, a 28-year-old video producer in Los Angeles, was confronted by her friends about her lack of communication in their group chat, the accusations were as follows: she only caught up every few days; when she did, it was barely an interaction – Lara spent time "hearting" messages instead of responding with words; and sometimes she would never respond at all. Lara did not deny it. She knew she sometimes preferred to throw her phone in a corner and completely avoid it rather than deal with the onslaught of requests. It wasn't until Lara addressed her behaviour in therapy that she realized she felt anxious from texting because of her tendency to please those around her. As her therapist described, people-pleasers are less likely to have boundaries around communication, which smartphones barely provide. "I never understood why I would be so difficult to communicate with, but then I realized it was all online," she said. Continue reading... |
| The battle over a vast New York park: is this climate resilience or capitalism? Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:00 AM PDT The city's plan to rebuild Manhattan's East River Park on higher ground has incited a dispute over 'green gentrification' A strip of land that borders New York's East River has become the latest environmental justice battle as the city prepares to start construction on a flood prevention project in one of Manhattan's most economically disadvantaged and diverse communities. East River Park, which covers 57.5 acres and loops around lower Manhattan like a hockey stick, is about the only waterfront green space within walking distance of the Lower East Side's public housing. During Hurricane Sandy, both the park and much of the nearby housing were significantly damaged by historic levels of flooding. Continue reading... |
| The road to net zero: Aberdeen looks to a future without oil Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT Can the Granite city diversify into non-fossil fuel industries in time to avoid the fate of UK coal-mining areas? The oil companies know it. The car dealers selling top of the range Porsches get it, as do the hoteliers and the restaurateurs. Change is coming to Aberdeen: the UK centre of North Sea fossil fuel production since the 1970s is trying to avoid becoming the city of stranded assets. The Granite city became Scotland's boom town almost by accident. It was Dundee down the coast that was originally identified as a probable hub for offshore production when exploratory work established large reserves of oil and gas under the continental shelf. Continue reading... |
| They would walk 500 miles: meet the Cop26 pilgrims who got to Glasgow on foot Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:00 AM PDT Accompanied by songs, stories and a stash of lentils, a group trekked from London, connecting with their faith, the countryside and the people they met along the way While most delegates deliberate about whether to drive, fly or catch the train to the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, a dozen or so pilgrims have just spent the past 55 days getting there on foot from London. Members of the female-run faith group Camino to Cop26 have been walking a 500-mile route since early September. Theirs is just one of a number of pilgrimages reaching Glasgow this weekend, with about 250 individuals expected, some coming from as far as Poland and Germany – one group has walked more than 1,000 miles from Sweden. Extinction Rebellion Scotland says their arrival will mark the "opening ceremony" for nonviolent protests planned in the Scottish city and around the world during the UN climate talks. Continue reading... |
| Reasons to be hopeful: the climate solutions available now Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:00 AM PDT We have every tool we need to tackle the climate crisis. Here's what some key sectors are doing The climate emergency is the biggest threat to civilisation we have ever faced. But there is good news: we already have every tool we need to beat it. The challenge is not identifying the solutions, but rolling them out with great speed. Some key sectors are already racing ahead, such as electric cars. They are already cheaper to own and run in many places – and when the purchase prices equal those of fossil-fueled vehicles in the next few years, a runaway tipping point will be reached. Continue reading... |
| Eco-anxiety over climate crisis suffered by all ages and classes Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:45 AM PDT Poll finds most Britons believe global warming will have far greater effect on humanity than Covid-19 A clear majority of people believe that climate change will have a more significant effect on humanity than will Covid-19, which has already claimed about five million lives worldwide, according to a new poll conducted ahead of the Cop26 summit being held in Glasgow this weekend. The survey, carried out as part of a study into "eco-anxiety" by the Global Future thinktank in conjunction with the University of York, also finds that concern about global warming is almost as common among older and working-class people as it is among those who are young or middle-class. Overall, 78% of people reported some level of eco-anxiety. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:15 AM PDT School administrations seem to endanger survivors' access to education more often than they hold their abusers accountable An estimated 300 students walked out of their classes last week at Skidmore College, a small, private school located on a tree-lined campus in Saratoga Springs, New York. The students gathered on the campus and began speaking into bullhorns about their experiences of sexual violence, and the various forms of hostility and indifference they received from college administrators when they reported them. According to reporting by Rachel Silberstein in the Albany Times Union, the demonstration was sparked by a controversial decision by the Skidmore administration to ban a young female student from campus after she posted about her experiences of sexual violence online. The woman's suspension comes as Skidmore students, disillusioned with their campus reporting system, have increasingly taken to social media to anonymously disclose their experiences of sexual violence within the Skidmore community. In the posts, many of which have been gathered on an anonymous Instagram account, young women describe experiences ranging from stalking to rapes to domestic violence. Some were allegedly cornered in dorms and forced to watch their classmates masturbate; others were groped late at night, by strangers at a party or while walking on the campus quad. The accounts vary in the character and severity of the gender violence that they describe, but the students seem united in their conviction that the school administration antagonizes survivors and endangers their access to education more often than it meaningfully intervenes to protect them or to hold their abusers accountable. As one post on the anonymous Instagram account put it, describing one student's experience of reporting through the school administration: "Little has been done, and I fear retaliation from the college." Continue reading... |
| The people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised? | Akin Olla Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:25 AM PDT Though he crossed state lines with a semi-automatic rifle and shot three people, Rittenhouse has been treated with an alarming degree of grace In the midst of the unrest following a police officer's shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy from Illinois, shot and killed two anti-police brutality protesters and wounded a third. This week the presiding judge in Rittenhouse's trial has decided that the men that Rittenhouse shot cannot be called "victims" during the trial. Despite purposefully crossing state lines armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Rittenhouse has been treated, before and after the act, with an alarming degree of grace. Rittenhouse's case is about a lot more than just one armed vigilante seeking to protect the status quo at the expense of human lives: it is about an entire system that pushed him to violence. Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian Continue reading... |
| How was Larry Nassar able to get away with his terrible crimes? | Deborah Tuerkheimer Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:22 AM PDT Nassar's victims came forward to parents, coaches, doctors, psychologists, USA Gymnastics and local police – and were dismissed as less credible than Nassar's preposterous claims of medical justification Continue reading... |
| Politicians talk about net zero – but not the sacrifices we must make to get there | John Harris Posted: 31 Oct 2021 06:17 AM PDT Too few leaders will arrive at Cop26 bearing any mandate for serious climate action, because hardly any have tried to get one To be facetious about it, they only have 12 days to save the Earth. As politicians and officials from 197 countries begin just under a fortnight's work at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, you can sense a strange mixture of feelings: expectation, cynicism, fatalism, anger and fragile hope. It will be easy to lose track of what is at stake and who is who – although anyone feeling confused should recall the report issued in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its bracing conclusion: that huge environmental changes triggered by global heating are now everywhere, and avoiding a future that will be completely catastrophic demands "immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions" in carbon emissions. The point is simple enough. But one familiar factor may well weaken the resolve of the key people at Cop26: the fact that too few politicians will arrive in Scotland bearing any mandate for serious climate action, because almost none of them have tried to get one. John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading... |
| Halloween shows us you can’t keep a good ghost down. And nor should you | Stephanie Merritt Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:30 AM PDT The ghost story is enjoying a revival. No wonder – we're hardly short of repressed fears to turn into fiction I'm not expecting to see a ghost tonight, but I will go in search of one. I've always assumed that any self-respecting spectre would run (float?) a mile from the lurid carnival trappings of contemporary Halloween revelries. And yet I still entertain a faint hope that, after the sticky children have been and gone with their plastic pumpkins and benign extortion, and I settle into a favourite chair with a book of ghost stories, there might be some corresponding fluttering of the curtains, a tap at the window, a shadow in the doorway, a sudden unexpected chill. I realise that in confessing my yearning for a haunting I risk my credentials as a good rationalist and proud patron of Humanists UK, but I suspect that this fascination with the idea of ghosts lies below the surface in all of us. I know several people – you probably do too – educated, sensible professionals, not given to histrionics, who quite calmly relate encounters with the unexplained that produce pleasing goosebumps. I want to believe them. As Dr Johnson observed about the existence of ghosts: "All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." Continue reading... |
| Trevor Siemian comes off bench to help Saints shock Tom Brady’s Buccaneers Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:00 PM PDT
Trevor Siemian threw a touchdown pass in place of the injured Jameis Winston and PJ Williams made a clinching pick-six of Tom Brady as the New Orleans Saints defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 36-27 on Sunday. Siemian replaced Winston in the second quarter, completed 16 of 29 for 159 yards and drove the Saints (5-2) 70 yards to Brian Johnson's 23-yard field goal that gave them a 29-27 lead with 1:44 remaining. Continue reading... |
| Nuno Espírito Santo’s Tottenham future in doubt after crisis talks with Levy Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:42 AM PDT
Nuno EspÃrito Santo's future as Tottenham manager is in serious doubt after the chairman, Daniel Levy, and managing director, Fabio Paratici, held crisis talks after Saturday's 3-0 defeat at home to Manchester United. The deflating loss, in which Tottenham did not manage a shot on target, was marked by the home fans booing the manager's substitutions and calling for Levy to go. It is understood that, despite Nuno signing a two-year contract on 1 July, the chairman and Paratici met on Sunday to discuss his future following a disappointing run of results that has left Spurs eighth in the Premier League. Continue reading... |
| Donald Trump chops with Atlanta Braves fans before World Series game Posted: 30 Oct 2021 09:01 PM PDT
Only months after calling for a boycott of Major League Baseball, Donald Trump did the "tomahawk chop" with Atlanta Braves fans at Game 4 of the World Series on Saturday night. The former president stood beside his wife, Melania, as he made the chopping motion with fans before the game between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros. Continue reading... |
| Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic non-committal over Australian Open Posted: 31 Oct 2021 04:12 PM PDT
US Open champion Daniil Medvedev said he is eager to play in the Australian Open in January but could not confirm his participation if only players who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 are allowed in Melbourne. Victoria's premier Daniel Andrews said this week that no unvaccinated players would be permitted to play in the tournament despite prime minister Scott Morrison earlier saying they could compete but only after undergoing a two-week quarantine. Continue reading... |
| Atlético Madrid’s return to Liverpool evokes eerily grim memories Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:00 AM PDT Atlético's most recent visit to Anfield for a Champions League tie in March 2020 turned out to be the last major football match in the UK before the sport was halted by the Covid crisis Madrid was at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak by 11 March 2020 and had closed its schools, suspended its regional parliament and all events with more than 1,000 people in response. La Liga had decided to stage matches behind closed doors and the all-Basque Copa del Rey final between Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad had been postponed indefinitely. Yet 3,000 Atlético Madrid supporters were among a crowd of 52,267 inside Anfield that night, staying in Liverpool hotels, travelling on public transport and celebrating in Liverpool pubs after knocking the holders out of the Champions League. Local hospitals reported an additional 37 deaths shortly afterwards. Continue reading... |
| Slick West Ham take advantage of Konsa’s red card and subdue Aston Villa Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:57 AM PDT Heady days at West Ham, who moved level on points with Manchester City in the Premier League's top four just days after knocking Pep Guardiola's side out of the Carabao Cup. Aston Villa, too, went into this season with ambitions of jostling with the strongest clubs but they and West Ham look poles apart. This scoreline was a fair reflection of the supremacy of David Moyes's side even if two of the visitors' goals came after Ezri Konsa was sent off for Villa, who have much to ponder after a fourth successive defeat. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:52 PM PDT Australians fly into Sydney airport to reunite with families without quarantine for the first time in 583 days; France reports the highest daily increase in Covid hospitalisations in six weeks
Indonesia has authorised the Sinovac vaccine for children aged 6-11, following the FDA's authorisation of Pfizer vaccine for children aged 5-11 in the US. It also authorises the Novavax vaccine. Indonesian tourism officials also held a regular briefing as more countries in the Asia-Pacific reopen to foreign visitors  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:57 PM PDT Fully vaccinated Australians are allowed to fly in and walk straight into arms of loved ones for first time in 583 days
Sydney airport has become the scene of tearful family reunions, with fully vaccinated Australians able to fly home and walk straight out of the airport for the first time in 583 days. Many of the passengers who were onboard the first flights from Singapore and Los Angeles walked into the arrivals terminal shortly after 6am on Monday morning to be greeted by emotional family members and loved ones. Continue reading... |
| China rejects US intelligence report on Covid origins as ‘political and false’ Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:46 AM PDT Beijing has reacted angrily to the report, which said China was hindering investigations into source of the pandemic Beijing has lashed out against a US intelligence review into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it "political and false" while urging Washington to stop attacking China. The Chinese foreign ministry's retort came on Sunday, days after the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a fuller version of its findings from a 90-day review ordered by president Joe Biden. Continue reading... |
| The regrets of the unvaccinated: why Covid-bereaved families are speaking out Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:00 PM PDT The majority of those dying of Covid-19 in the UK and the US are have not been vaccinated. Bereaved relatives are telling their stories to try to convince others to get their jabs Phil Valentine was a Tennessee-based conservative talk radio host who was sceptical about the US government's response to the coronavirus crisis. He was not completely 'anti-vax', but he did not think he was vulnerable to Covid and talked on air about his decision not to be vaccinated. He even performed a song called Vaxman, a parody of the Beatles' Taxman. Shortly after the song was released, he contracted the virus. Before Valentine died, he sent a message to his brother Mark from hospital about his regret. He asked him to tell others to get the vaccine to make amends for the message he had spread on his show. Continue reading... |
| Mark Gatiss: ‘I’m currently very, very ashamed of being English’ Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:00 AM PDT The former League of Gentlemen star on his love of low-budget British spinechillers, his loathing of Brexit and a slew of projects opening this winter Mark Gatiss scans the breakfast menu at an east London restaurant with a famished eye. We're at the hinge moment between the nightlife of an A-lister, who attended the James Bond premiere the previous evening, and the day job as an actor who, by his own account, could only land a role he had wanted all his life by writing the play himself. "It was a long evening," he says of No Time to Die. He hadn't had dinner and was trying to stave off the hunger pangs by sipping water, but not too much, because he couldn't get out to the loo: "So I'm just really hungry." He's like a jovial Eeyore, painting himself into a lugubrious picture of the turnip fields of celebrity, before deciding, with a giggle, that a hearty breakfast of avocado on toast is exactly what's needed to put everything to rights. This is certainly no time to die of hunger for Gatiss, who has rocketed out of the pandemic as one of British showbusiness's most sought-after all-rounders. He's currently putting the finishing touches to his remake of the 1972 children's film The Amazing Mr Blunden while rehearsing his new adaptation of A Christmas Carol. The latest in a series of half-hour ghost stories, The Mezzotint, is ready to roll into his now customary slot on the Christmas TV schedules. But it's not all fear and Victorian clothing, he spent part of the lost year in the Outer Hebrides, playing a country doctor in a first world war romance, The Road Dance, and another part messing about in a pedalo on a boating lake with his old League of Gentlemen muckers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith for a new series of their TV comedy Inside No 9. Continue reading... |
| Last Night in Soho review – a deliciously twisted journey back to London’s swinging past Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:00 AM PDT Slasher fantasy and ghostly magic collide in Edgar Wright's heady thriller about a fashion student who is mysteriously transported into the life of a 60s nightclub singer "It's not what you imagine, London," says Rita Tushingham in this deliciously twisted love letter to Britain's cinematic pop-culture past. Director and co-writer Edgar Wright, whose CV runs from the rural action-comedy Hot Fuzz to the recent dramatic music doc The Sparks Brothers, has cheekily described Last Night in Soho as "Peeping Tom's Midnight Garden", a mashup of seedy Soho nostalgia and melancholy magic. Making superb use of its West End and Fitzrovia locations, and boasting a cast that includes Terence Stamp (cutting a silhouette that weirdly recalls William Hartnell's Doctor Who) and Diana Rigg in her final role, it's a head-spinning fable that twists from finger-snapping retro fun to giallo-esque slasher fantasy as it dances through streets paved not with gold but with glitter, grit and splashes of stabby gore. Thomasin McKenzie, who dazzled in Debra Granik's Leave No Trace, is Eloise Turner, a wide-eyed, 60s-obsessed fashion student with a "gift" that leaves her haunted by Don't Look Now-style visions of her dead mother. Having earned a place at the London College of Fashion, "Ellie" finds herself in a top-floor bedsit from whence she is nightly transported back into the capital's swinging past through the ghostly mirrored-life of wannabe singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). In her dreams, Ellie (who says the 60s "speak to me") both watches and becomes Sandie, aiming for the stars but falling to the streets as the meat-hook realities of London life hit home. Is Sandie a figment of Ellie's overheated imagination – a wish-fulfilment turned into a nightmare - or has she somehow made a genuine connection across generations? Continue reading... |
| Too Famous by Michael Wolff review – a sneering apologist for the notorious Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:00 AM PDT In this collection of his essays and columns, the American journalist takes pride in being as ruthless as some of those he writes about – from Jeffrey Epstein to Steve Bannon Fame, according to Milton's poem, spurs "the clear spirit... To scorn delights, and live laborious days". For Milton, that quest for lasting renown was an aristocratic pursuit, an "infirmity of noble mind". Michael Wolff's new book begins by lamenting "the democratisation of fame": no achievement is required of today's self-promoting wannabes, and all that counts is visibility on social media. Yet the celebrities Wolff examines retain a status that he calls "semi-heroic" because they suffer the penalties of fame or infamy, which include "humiliation, prosecution, jail, even death". Too Famous begins with Hugh Grant dodging the inevitable blitz of selfies by retreating into defensive privacy; it ends as Jeffrey Epstein dies in the solitude of his prison cell. Wolff himself became famous by writing three books of inflammatory gossip about the Trump administration. To capitalise on that success, he now recycles some early journalism, adding an unpublished account of time apparently spent in Epstein's Manhattan mansion, where – although he doesn't say how or why he obtained such indiscreet access – he eavesdrops as the predator's cronies put him through a course of "media training" in the hope of palliating his crimes. Continue reading... |
| Want horror for Halloween? Critics pick music, books, games and more to help Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:00 AM PDT From a creepy Hollywood comedy to trick or treat for gamers, Guardian critics suggest their cultural classics Forget slasher films – the essential Halloween movie is Frank Capra's 1944 comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, which takes place one Halloween night in Brooklyn in a creepy old house next to a churchyard. Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who discovers on his wedding day that his sweet old maiden aunts are, in fact, serial killers with bodies piled up in their cellar. Then his long-lost brother turns up – also a serial killer, with the same body count as the old ladies, and who, to evade capture, has had plastic surgery, making him resemble the horror icon Boris Karloff (played by Raymond Massey – Karloff performed the role in the Broadway version). It has to be the most meta event in Hollywood history. A rather delirious 31 October. Peter Bradshaw Continue reading... |
| Gothic becomes Latin America’s go-to genre as writers turn to the dark side Posted: 31 Oct 2021 02:00 AM PDT The region used to be almost synonymous with magic realism but recent bestselling fiction draws on a legacy of dictatorship, poverty and sinister folklore A young man follows the bloody trail of his CIA father, through Paraguayan torture chambers and the sites of Andean massacres. An Ecuadorian artist fantasizes about running a scalpel through the tongue of her mute twin. In a Buenos Aires cemetery, teenage fans devour a rock star's rotting remains. These grisly scenes – and many more like them – populate the pages of Latin America's recent bestselling fiction. From the Andes to the Amazon and to the urban sprawl of some of the world's biggest cities, a ghoulish shadow has been cast over Latin American literature. Continue reading... |
| The Rescue review – riveting Thai cave rescue documentary Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:30 AM PDT The rescuers are the focus as Free Solo directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin expertly weave news footage with restaged scenes A junior football team trapped deep inside a flooded cave in Thailand are making headlines all over the world. Not even the Thai Navy Seals have been able to save them and their chances of survival are bleak. That is, until a pair of middle-aged Britons arrive on the scene. Rick and John don't exactly look like action heroes; one is bald, the other bespectacled, and both could be described as bumbling. But they are two of the world's best cave divers, and in 2018 they led one of the most dramatic rescue missions of recent times. This hugely involving documentary from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the directing duo and married couple behind the Oscar-winning climbing documentary Free Solo, centres on the rescuers rather than the rescued (the rights to the boys' story were speedily bought for another project, by Netflix). Twenty-four-hour news coverage of the event is integrated seamlessly with footage filmed by locals and reconstructions starring the divers themselves. Vasarhelyi and Chin recreate the sense of the clock running down as oxygen levels in the cave decrease, while the monsoon outside rages. Continue reading... |
| He played Martin Luther King. Next up: a fiery white rightwinger Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:15 AM PDT David Harewood cast as William Buckley in James Graham's new play of fiery 1968 debates with Gore Vidal It was a battle royale fought between American political titans, and it played out on screen in a series of televised bouts in 1968. Now James Graham, the leading British playwright behind the television drama Quiz and stage play Ink, is to put the historic clashes between the leading liberal Gore Vidal and conservative intellectual William F Buckley Jr at the centre of a new play, Best of Enemies. Playing Buckley, a man who founded and edited the rightwing, libertarian National Review in 1955 and who worked briefly for the CIA, will be David Harewood, the actor known for his roles in the TV series Homeland and for playing Martin Luther King Jr on stage in The Mountaintop. Continue reading... |
| ‘My Elizabeth Barrett Browning film needs a woman’s touch – but where are all the female directors?’ Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:45 AM PDT Screenwriter of biopic about the radical poet says the industry must do more to get women behind the camera lens A new film about a 19th-century poet and early feminist is crying out to be filmed through a woman's lens, but it is likely to be directed by a man because there is such a shortage of female directors, according to one of Britain's leading screenwriters. Paula Milne has written a feature film inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who campaigned against social injustice, including slavery and child labour, while living in fear of her own father. Milne believes that such a story, with its many contemporary parallels, should be filmed by a woman, because of the natural empathy that women have for one another, but that is unlikely to happen. Continue reading... |
| Italy’s father of tiramisu dies aged 93 Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:07 AM PDT Restaurateur Ado Campeol launched the coffee-flavoured dessert, whose name means 'lift me up', in 1972 An Italian restaurateur known as the "father of tiramisu" has died aged 93. Ado Campeol died at his home in Treviso, in the Veneto region, on Saturday. Although the dessert's origins are often disputed and the family never asserted copyright over the recipe, Campeol and his wife, Alba, the owners of the restaurant Alle Beccherie, are widely considered to be its inventors. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 04:00 AM PDT From the tragic disappearance of beloved first pet, Perky, to Blackie the con artist kitten, the writer recalls how cats have long crept into her work I was a cat-deprived young child. I longed for a kitten, but was denied one: we spent two-thirds of every year in the north woods of Canada, so if we took the cat with us it would run away and get lost and be eaten by wolves; but if we did not take it with us, who would look after it? These objections were unanswerable. I bided my time. Meanwhile I fantasised. My drawings as a six-year-old are festooned with flying cats, and my first book – a volume of poems put together with folded sheets and a construction-paper cover – was called Rhyming Cats, and had an illustration of a cat playing with a ball. This cat looked like a sausage with ears and whiskers, but it was early days in my design career. Continue reading... |
| Flight might be a fantasy, but to my three-year-old, a bus beats a plane any day Posted: 31 Oct 2021 01:30 AM PDT Riding on big red buses makes great conversation wherever you are, according to my son 'Daddy…' asks my son in that same voice I know from roughly 80% of our interactions. 'Do you like going on big red buses?' He asks me this a few times a day, even while we are literally on big red buses, deploying it as a sort of conversational chaff grenade entirely for subject-changing purposes, much the way you or I might say 'Sooooooo… how are things?' when faced with a person whose name you can't remember at a party. 'Oh yes,' I reply, 'very much.' His fascination with London buses is quite charming, but it is odd that he is asking this on an aeroplane. It's our first boys-only trip and I'm quite excited; more so than my son who doesn't appear to have any fascination with planes compared to the flashier, but altogether more earthbound, vehicles of the London transport network. Continue reading... |
| American Airlines cancels around 1,600 flights due to weather and staff shortage Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:48 AM PDT
American Airlines said on Sunday it had canceled more than 1,600 flights over three days, citing blustery conditions in Texas and a shortage of flight attendants. The disruptions were similar in initial cause and size to problems suffered in early October by Southwest Airlines, raising questions about whether major airlines are prepared for the holiday travel period. Continue reading... |
| Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidency Posted: 30 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT The president won the state by 10 points but Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has acknowledged Washington politics could hurt his campaign Scott Knuth was dwarfed by the 16ft x 10ft flag that he waved to and fro on a street corner in Arlington, Virginia. "Trump won," it falsely proclaimed, "Save America." But Donald Trump was not coming to town. Instead his successor, Joe Biden, was about to take the stage in a campaign rally at a dangerous inflection point in his young presidency. Continue reading... |
| US would only quit Iran nuclear deal if Tehran were to renege, Biden pledges Posted: 31 Oct 2021 04:41 PM PDT President makes commitment alongside Germany, France and UK not to repeat Donald Trump's walkout on agreement Joe Biden has given a pledge that if the US returns to the Iran nuclear agreement, it will only subsequently leave if Tehran clearly breaks the terms of the deal. The US president made the commitment, which addresses one of Iran's key negotiating demands, in a joint statement issued with Germany, France and the UK. The statement followed a meeting on the margins of the G20 in Rome attended by Biden, Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Emmanuel Macron and Britain's Boris Johnson. Continue reading... |
| Macron accuses Australian PM of lying over submarine deal Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:27 PM PDT French president criticises Scott Morrison and expresses scepticism that Aukus pact will deliver on schedule Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra. The French president levelled the accusation in impromptu comments to Australian journalists on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. He said he had a lot of "respect and friendship" for Australia and Australians, but that respect between nations needed to be reciprocated. Continue reading... |
| Brazilian police kill 25 suspects allegedly part of bank robbery gang Posted: 31 Oct 2021 10:02 AM PDT Congressman hails 'historic clean-up' after police raids on farmhouses in Minas Gerais Police in Brazil have killed 25 suspects as part of what authorities called an unprecedented offensive against heavily armed bank robbers whose brazen heists have brought several major cities to a standstill. The alleged criminals were gunned down in the early hours of Sunday in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais, where police claimed they had been poised to unleash an attack. Continue reading... |
| Reclusive Taliban supreme leader makes rare public appearance Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:57 AM PDT Haibatullah Akhundzada said to have visited religious school in Kandahar, confounding rumours of his death The Taliban's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, has made a rare public appearance in the southern city of Kandahar, Taliban officials announced on Sunday, contradicting widespread rumours of his death. Akhundzada, known as the leader of the faithful or Amir ul Momineen, had not been seen in public since the Taliban's August takeover of the country, giving rise to the speculation. Continue reading... |
| Arrest after man dressed as Joker injures 17 in Tokyo train attack Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:57 PM PDT Japanese media report man in Batman villain costume stabbed people and started a fire A suspect has been arrested for attempted murder after 17 people were injured in a knife and fire attack on a train in Tokyo that was carried out by a man wearing a Joker costume. Witnesses told public broadcaster NHK how petrified passengers had fled to adjoining carriages and jumped out of windows during the attack, which occurred on Sunday, when the Japanese capital was full of Halloween revellers, many in costume. Continue reading... |
| Greece lets boat packed with Afghan refugees dock after four days at sea Posted: 31 Oct 2021 10:58 AM PDT Vessel allowed to disembark almost 400 people in Aegean port of Kos in 'unusual and special case' After roaming the high seas for four days as Greece and Turkey haggled over its fate, a cargo ship packed with hundreds of Afghan refugees has been allowed to dock at an Aegean island, with passengers disembarking to apply for asylum. In what Greece's migration ministry called "an unusual and special case", the Turkish-flagged vessel was towed into the port of Kos on Sunday. About 375 passengers, the biggest single influx of asylum seekers in years, were taken to a reception centre on the island. Six others were detained for questioning and one woman was admitted to hospital on the island of Karpathos. Continue reading... |
| Sudan coup protesters return to barricades on seventh day of unrest Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:40 AM PDT Militia and police personnel target protesters in south Khartoum a day after deadly crackdown Sudanese anti-coup protesters gathered behind barricades in Khartoum on Sunday, a day after a deadly crackdown on mass rallies. Tens of thousands of people turned out across the country for Saturday's demonstrations, and at least three people were shot dead and more than 100 people wounded, according to medics. Police denied the killings or using live bullets. Continue reading... |
| Man dies after being gored at bull-running festival in Spain Posted: 31 Oct 2021 03:19 AM PDT Death of 55-year-old attacked in Onda is first such fatality since events resumed after Covid hiatus A man has died after he was gored at a bull-running festival in eastern Spain, the first such fatality in the country since events resumed after Covid-19 curbs were relaxed during the summer. The 55-year-old, who has not been named, was repeatedly attacked by a bull at a festival in Onda, the town's council said on Saturday. Other participants tried to entice the animal away but their efforts failed. Continue reading... |
| Halloween hijinks and climate action: the weekend’s best photos Posted: 31 Oct 2021 08:30 AM PDT |
| The big picture: incarcerated gang members in El Salvador Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:00 AM PDT Tariq Zaidi's powerful image of the overcrowded Chalatenango prison, which housed 1,637 inmates from the feared MS-13 criminal organisation The British-based photographer Tariq Zaidi took this picture in Chalatenango prison in El Salvador in 2019. At the time, the prison held 1,637 inmates, all of whom were members of the MS-13 gang that has terrorised the country for decades. Zaidi arrived in El Salvador in 2018 and spent eight months negotiating access to the brutal world of MS-13 and its rival, Barrio 18. In the following two years, he visited six maximum security prisons and numerous bloody crime scenes and funeral processions. His aim, he suggests, in his book of the pictures, Sin Salida (No Way Out), was to document the vicious dystopia that parts of El Salvador had become: "When then-President Trump was calling Central American migrant caravans 'criminals' and the like, I wanted to explore what kind of life these people were leaving behind." The motto of MS-13 is "kill, rape, control". It is estimated to have used violent extortion against 70% of El Salvador's businesses. After a dozen years in which the murder rate was higher than any country outside a war zone, President Nayib Bukele, who styles himself as "the world's coolest dictator", won power in 2019 on a platform of zero tolerance of gang violence. His authoritarian "territorial control plan", along with an alleged secret pact with MS-13 leaders, filled the country's jails to more than triple capacity and dramatically cut the official murder rate. Continue reading... |
| Cop26 day 0: Glasgow prepares – in pictures Posted: 31 Oct 2021 12:00 PM PDT From 'climate trains' and indigenous ceremonies to pilgrimages and protests, delegates, activists and journalists descend on the UN climate conference Continue reading... |
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