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- US strikes IS target in Afghanistan and warns of airport threat
- Sirhan Sirhan, man who assassinated Robert F Kennedy, granted parole
- Scientists discover ‘world’s northernmost island’ off Greenland’s coast
- Starbucks workers in New York are organizing to form first US union
- Boat accident in Bangladesh leaves at least 20 people dead
- Hurricane Ida barrels down on Louisiana amid warnings of ‘life-altering storm’
- US intelligence couldn’t resolve debate over Covid origins – official report
- Judge: Michigan couple must pay son $30,441 for throwing out porn collection
- Toyota pauses Paralympics self-driving buses after one hits visually impaired athlete
- Solicitor in court accused of injecting blood into food at London supermarkets
- An oral history of Oxford/AstraZeneca: ‘Making a vaccine in a year is like landing a human on the moon’
- Coronavirus live news: larger risk of hospitalisation with Delta variant, study says; Australia records 1,035 cases
- New Zealand Covid update: 82 new cases as outbreak worsens despite nationwide lockdown
- Vaccine wars: how the decision not to get the shot is tearing loved ones apart
- Sally Rooney on the hell of fame: ‘It doesn’t seem to work in any real way for anyone’
- ‘I feel helpless, useless and hopeless’: diary of an Afghan evacuee
- Fran Lebowitz: ‘If people disagree with me, so what?’
- ‘That first year was a crazy rollercoaster’: why a new mother turned a crisis into cartoons
- Colin Farrell on making The North Water: ‘It’s a relief that no one died’
- Blind date: ‘By the time I arrived, he was best mates with the manager’
- Man, 49, arrested on suspicion of two murders in London
- Afghans reach Europe and buying burqas in Kabul: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
- Purple Sea review – panic and terror as Syrian refugees battle to stay afloat
- Mauritius government suspends funding over MFA’s handling of voyeurism claims
- Your life in your phone’s hands: can an app really detect cancer?
- Australia Covid live news update: NSW reports 1,035 new cases and two deaths; Victoria records 64 infections and ACT 26
- ‘Bad options all around’: Biden’s vow to avenge Kabul attack could take years
- Michel Barnier joins long list of leaders vying to unite French centre-right
- Biden doesn't want Kabul attackers 'to live on planet Earth any more', says Psaki – video
- Caldor fire burns on both sides of US Highway 50, footage shows – video
- Andrew Quilty documents 12 days of chaos in Kabul – in pictures
| US strikes IS target in Afghanistan and warns of airport threat Posted: 27 Aug 2021 07:21 PM PDT Drone strike carried out east of Kabul as Pentagon warns of further 'specific, credible' threats against airport The US has conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan on Saturday, as the airlift of those desperate to flee moved into its fraught final stages with fresh terror attack warnings and encroaching Taliban forces primed to take over the Kabul airport. US troops overseeing the evacuation have been forced into closer security cooperation with the Taliban to prevent any repeat of a suicide bombing that killed scores of civilians crowded around one of the airport's main access gates, and 13 American troops. Continue reading... |
| Sirhan Sirhan, man who assassinated Robert F Kennedy, granted parole Posted: 27 Aug 2021 04:20 PM PDT
The man who killed Robert F Kennedy was granted parole on Friday after two of the former attorney general, senator and presidential hopeful's sons spoke in favor of release and prosecutors declined to argue he should be kept behind bars. Related: 'Something died in America': John Lewis on Robert Kennedy's legacy Continue reading... |
| Scientists discover ‘world’s northernmost island’ off Greenland’s coast Posted: 27 Aug 2021 07:29 PM PDT Researchers say the tiny island in Greenland – roughly 30 metres across – was exposed by shifting pack ice Scientists have discovered a new island off the coast of Greenland, which they say is the world's northernmost point of land and was revealed by shifting pack ice. "It was not our intention to discover a new island," polar explorer and head of the Arctic station research facility in Greenland, Morten Rasch, said of the find last month. "We just went there to collect samples." Continue reading... |
| Starbucks workers in New York are organizing to form first US union Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:00 AM PDT The company has vigorously opposed unions in the past and says its 'partners' in Buffalo don't need one now Fifty Starbucks workers in New York are trying to form a union, which would be the first in the US for the coffee chain if successful. Last week, the group of workers in the Buffalo area publicly announced their union organizing drive and the formation of their organizing committee, Starbucks Workers United, in a letter to the Starbucks CEO, Kevin Johnson. Continue reading... |
| Boat accident in Bangladesh leaves at least 20 people dead Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:00 AM PDT Passenger boat carrying more than 100 people reportedly sank after being hit by two cargo vessels More than 20 people have died and about 50 remain missing in Bangladesh after a passenger boat carrying more than 100 people sank in a large pond. The accident occurred in the Bijoynagar area in the Brahmanbaria district on Friday evening, local police official Imranul Islam said. He said rescuers recovered at least 21 bodies by late Friday. Local news reports, quoting the area's top government administrator, Hayat-Ud-Dola, said about 50 people were missing. Continue reading... |
| Hurricane Ida barrels down on Louisiana amid warnings of ‘life-altering storm’ Posted: 27 Aug 2021 05:46 PM PDT Tens of thousands in US face evacuation orders as storm makes first landfall in Cuba, sparking fears of floods and mudslides Hurricane Ida rapidly gained strength on Friday evening as communities in southern Louisiana braced for a major category 4 storm with sustained winds of about 140mph and tens of thousands of residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders. The hurricane is due to make landfall in the US on Sunday, with officials warning of a "life-altering storm". The cities of New Orleans and Lafayette, as well as the state capital, Baton Rouge, are under threat from Ida, which is forecast to reach the US somewhere between the parishes of Terrebone and St Mary, slightly west of New Orleans. Continue reading... |
| US intelligence couldn’t resolve debate over Covid origins – official report Posted: 27 Aug 2021 04:24 PM PDT Biden administration divided over whether Chinese laboratory incident was source of disease The US intelligence community failed to resolve sharp debate within the Biden administration over whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of Covid-19, US officials said in a report summary on Friday. The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to Joe Biden's request, said a satisfying answer to the question of how a virus that has killed 4.6 million people worldwide started remained out of reach. Continue reading... |
| Judge: Michigan couple must pay son $30,441 for throwing out porn collection Posted: 27 Aug 2021 12:50 PM PDT Ruling says parents had no legal right to 'destroy property that they dislike' A judge in Michigan has ordered a couple to pay $30,441 (£22,100) to their son, for throwing out his pornography collection. US district judge Paul Maloney's decision this week came eight months after David Werking, 43, won a lawsuit against his parents. Continue reading... |
| Toyota pauses Paralympics self-driving buses after one hits visually impaired athlete Posted: 27 Aug 2021 07:59 PM PDT Japan's Aramitsu Kitazono was left with cuts and bruises after being hit by the e-Palette vehicle at the athletes' village Toyota has apologised for the "overconfidence" of a self-driving bus after it ran over a Paralympic judoka in the athletes' village and said it would temporarily suspend the service. The Japanese athlete, Aramitsu Kitazono, will be unable to compete in his 81kg category this weekend after being left with cuts and bruises following the impact with the "e-Palette" vehicle. His injuries prompted a personal intervention from the president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda. Continue reading... |
| Solicitor in court accused of injecting blood into food at London supermarkets Posted: 27 Aug 2021 08:50 AM PDT Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, charged with contaminating or interfering with goods at Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury's stores A solicitor accused of using syringes to inject blood into food at three west London supermarkets has appeared in court. Leoaai Elghareeb is charged with contaminating or interfering with goods with intent at three stores – a Tesco Express, Little Waitrose and Sainsbury's Local – on Fulham Palace Road. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 27 Aug 2021 11:00 PM PDT It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply. Here, some of those who created the vaccine tell the story of their epic race against the virus In December 2019, hospitals in Wuhan, China, reported that they were dealing with dozens of cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. They soon identified the disease as being caused by a novel coronavirus. Teresa Lambe, associate professor, Jenner Institute My brother lived in China, so whenever there was an emerging or break pathogen there, I used to follow it. I remember thinking very early on that this was probably another influenza strain. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:34 AM PDT Delta Covid cases likely to put strain on health services in areas with low vaccination rates, experts say; Australia suffers its worst daily total
September will be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 as pupils return to school in England, Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) government advisory body has said. Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Dr Tildesley said it "remains to be seen" how things might change when people start to mix more. I think the key thing for me actually is what's going to happen next month. Children are going back to school, people are coming back off their summer vacations and I think monitoring what that does to the data – and not just cases but monitoring very carefully hospital admissions and deaths – will really dictate, I think, what's going to happen in the autumn. Obviously, we have the Delta variant, which is more transmissible – we have quite high prevalence, a lot of cases; but of course on the other side, we have a very good and effective vaccination campaign. So I think it remains to be seen how they will trade off against each other and what that will do when September comes and people start to mix a little bit more."
India reported 46,759 new Covid cases on Saturday, the highest daily number of recorded cases in nearly two months and the third consecutive day that case numbers have exceeded 40,000. The southern state of Kerala, which last week celebrated the local Onam festival, accounted for 70% of the new cases, Reuters reports. Continue reading... |
| New Zealand Covid update: 82 new cases as outbreak worsens despite nationwide lockdown Posted: 27 Aug 2021 08:11 PM PDT All new cases are in Auckland, with 62 within the Pacific community New Zealand's Covid-19 outbreak has worsened, with 82 new cases taking the total infected to 415. All of Saturday's cases were in Auckland, with the Pacific community again over-represented with 62 cases. Continue reading... |
| Vaccine wars: how the decision not to get the shot is tearing loved ones apart Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:00 AM PDT When friends and family disagree about getting vaccinated, close ties can fray. Some siblings have even stopped talking to each other Megan, a 30-year-old from rural Nebraska, feels torn. She hasn't been vaccinated against Covid-19, but if left to her own devices, things would be different. She worries about what would happen if she caught the virus and passed it on to her toddler daughter, whose history of health complications includes hospitalization for lung problems. Megan feels a responsibility to protect her child. But she also doesn't want to keep secrets from her husband – who, along with his mother, is adamantly against the vaccine for political reasons. (All names in this story have been changed.) As she figures out how to protect herself and her daughter without inciting major family conflict, Megan admits that her husband's reliance on conspiracy theories he learns from like-minded friends or social media posts has made it difficult to trust him. Especially now. Continue reading... |
| Sally Rooney on the hell of fame: ‘It doesn’t seem to work in any real way for anyone’ Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:00 AM PDT At 30, the Normal People author is already the most talked-about novelist of her generation. As she readies her third novel, she's bracing for more (unwanted) attention Sally Rooney appears before a stark, white background, stripped of even the most incidental feature. It makes me laugh: in 18 months of Zoom meetings, I've encountered people in their bedrooms and home offices, in front of bookcases and windows – situations that, no matter how bland or contrived, still betray some minor, contextualising detail. The empty staging today is, evidently, something that Rooney, after two hit novels and the rapid onset of an unwelcome fame, clearly wishes might extend further than a video call. Later in our conversation she will tell me celebrity is a condition that, in many cases, "happens without meaningful consent – the famous person never even wanted to become famous". Now, after exchanging greetings, I mention the singularity of the naked white walls and she laughs and says merely, "Yes." There are some good reasons for the 30-year-old's reticence. Her first two novels – Conversations With Friends and Normal People – were published in quick succession to the sort of acclaim that put Rooney in a category of exposure more consistent with actors than novelists. The books featured characters in late adolescence and early adulthood struggling through first relationships while starting to organise their thoughts about the world. They were erudite and self-assured, written with a dry, flat affect that was often very funny, and contained the kinds of fleeting, well-wrought descriptions that infused every scene with a casual virtuosity. (Early on in Conversations With Friends, Frances, the heroine, sleeps with Nick, a married man, and taking the bus home afterwards, sits at the back near the window, where "the sun bore down on my face like a drill and the cloth of the seat felt sensationally tactile against my bare skin". Rooney's ability to unpack a thought or feeling without forfeiting economy is one of the great strengths of her writing.) Continue reading... |
| ‘I feel helpless, useless and hopeless’: diary of an Afghan evacuee Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:00 AM PDT Student and English teacher Mursal Rasa Jamili, 23, was evacuated to the UK from Kabul with her two sisters Mursal Rasa Jamili, a 23-year-old final-year university student and English teacher in Kabul, was evacuated to the UK with her two sisters. Here she explains what happened during her last days in Afghanistan. Sunday 22 August Continue reading... |
| Fran Lebowitz: ‘If people disagree with me, so what?’ Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:00 AM PDT With a hit Netflix series and The Fran Lebowitz Reader now published in the UK, the American wit talks about failing to write, her dislike of Andy Warhol and her best friend Toni Morrison Fran Lebowitz is a famous writer who famously doesn't write. "I'm really lazy and writing is really hard and I don't like to do hard things," she says, and it's the rare writer who would not have some sympathy with that. Yet, as all writers also know, writer's block, which the 70-year-old has suffered from for four decades now, is never really about laziness. Lebowitz's editor Erroll McDonald ("the man with the easiest job in New York") has said she suffers from "excessive reverence for the written word". Given that Lebowitz has, at last count, more than 11,000 of them in her apartment, there is no question that she loves books. "I would never throw away a book – there are human beings I would rather throw out of the window," she says. So is this talk of "excessive reverence" a euphemistic way of saying that she has low self-esteem and doesn't think she can write anything good enough to commit to print? Continue reading... |
| ‘That first year was a crazy rollercoaster’: why a new mother turned a crisis into cartoons Posted: 27 Aug 2021 10:00 PM PDT When her partner left her with a newborn one dark Finnish winter, Anna Härmälä didn't crumble. Inspired by Fleabag, she turned her pain into raw, funny cartoons "It's Finnish winter in complete darkness, and it's raining ice. And then you can't sleep, and the baby is screaming, and you're too tired to get up, but if you don't get up, there is no one else there." Anna Härmälä is describing February 2015, when her partner walked out on her and their five-week-old baby. In order to remember, she has to inhabit the "brutal darkness" of that time. "There was extreme tiredness, a deep sadness, moments of despair – but also moments of great love and purpose. That first year was a crazy rollercoaster. It was absolutely… " She pauses, and breathes in, searching for the right word. What is the word for how it feels when your partner has an affair and abandons you with a newborn? How do you explain it? Härmälä, a Finnish art teacher and children's book author, started drawing comics. The comics are raw and funny and painful, thrusting the reader straight into the moment of crisis: Härmälä, ravaged with tiredness, contemplating the droopiness of her breasts and eyebags; intimate conversations with friends; snapshots of the messy loneliness of life stranded with a newborn. The drawings feel so immediate that it's easy to believe you are reading the story in real time – yeah right, as if a newly single mother, desperately trying to survive, would be likely to sit down each day and create beautiful narrative art about it. Continue reading... |
| Colin Farrell on making The North Water: ‘It’s a relief that no one died’ Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:00 AM PDT Farrell and Stephen Graham star in the gritty new thriller about an 1850s whaling ship. However, the drama wasn't confined to the screen … Nothing shocked me about The North Water," says Colin Farrell, stroking his straggly beard. "If I want to be shocked, I'll go out at 3am and see someone homeless in the street. That's shocking because it demonstrates apathy that results in abject cruelty. This has blood, seal and whale killings, murder, rape, mayhem. But however brutal that seems, it's a film set. It's all artifice." Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... |
| Blind date: ‘By the time I arrived, he was best mates with the manager’ Posted: 27 Aug 2021 10:00 PM PDT Tandeka, 29, content designer, meets Eamon, 31, postgraduate student What were you hoping for? |
| Man, 49, arrested on suspicion of two murders in London Posted: 27 Aug 2021 01:16 PM PDT Lee Peacock arrested over deaths of Sharon Pickles and Clinton Ashmore in Westminster A 49-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murders of Sharon Pickles, 45, and Clinton Ashmore, 59, who were found fatally stabbed at two addresses in Westminster last week. The Metropolitan police said he was arrested at a London hospital on Thursday afternoon. Continue reading... |
| Afghans reach Europe and buying burqas in Kabul: human rights this fortnight – in pictures Posted: 27 Aug 2021 11:30 PM PDT A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Afghanistan to Greece Continue reading... |
| Purple Sea review – panic and terror as Syrian refugees battle to stay afloat Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:18 AM PDT Syrian director Amel Alzakout records her own stranding in this difficult-to-watch film on a day when 40 people died off the coast of Lesbos Powerful but painful to watch, this experimental documentary challenges viewers to avert their eyes from the tragedy unfolding before them. It consists almost entirely of footage recorded on a waterproof camera that was strapped to the wrist of Syrian co-director Amel Alzakout while she was floating in the sea off the coast of Lesbos, after the boat she'd been travelling in sunk. Like the other 300 people on the vessel that day in 2015, Alzakout had paid people smugglers to help her escape the war in Syria and find a better life abroad. While she lived to make this film and was reunited with her partner and co-director Khaled Abdulwahed, some 40 people died in the water that day. It's possible that some of the perished are even captured on film here – though to be honest, it's hard to make out much for long stretches as the images thrash around, evoking the panic Alzakout and her fellow passengers, many in lifejackets, must have been experiencing as they tried to stay afloat. Sometimes the camera is above the waterline and we can hear people crying, calling hysterically, blowing whistles to call for help. Otherwise, the view is of jeans-clad legs and other jumbled bodies twisting in the water, the sound muffled by the sea. Continue reading... |
| Mauritius government suspends funding over MFA’s handling of voyeurism claims Posted: 27 Aug 2021 09:45 AM PDT
The Mauritius government has suspended financial support to local clubs and given the country's Football Assocation until November to resolve its "governance issues" over the handling of voyeurism allegations at its headquarters. Administrative secretary, Mila Sinnasamy, has claimed that a mobile phone in recording mode was discovered on 30 July was concealed in a blue basket placed in the water tank of the women's toilet at the MFA's headquarters in Trianon, 15 km from the capital, Port Louis. Police have confirmed that a file on the allegations of voyeurism will be submitted to the office of the director of public prosecutions, with Bindou Kistnairain, who works as a cleaner at the MFA, claiming that she also saw a phone in the toilets during her shift in May and did not report it due to fears of "being fired and any retaliation". Continue reading... |
| Your life in your phone’s hands: can an app really detect cancer? Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:00 AM PDT People can use cellphones to catch a slew of skin conditions but questions of accuracy and biases in algorithm databases remain In a video, 30-year-old Stacey Everson tells the story of how she picked up her phone, snapped a selfie, and saved her own life. She might have easily overlooked the small, irregular mole on her upper left arm. But prompted by friends and family, she took a picture of the growth with an app named SkinVision, and followed up on the app's recommendation that she see a doctor, urgently. The doctor removed and tested the growth. "A week later, it came back positive for early-stage melanoma," she says. "Something like that, I wouldn't have thought it would be cancer." Her testimonial is one of several on the product's website, and SkinVision is only one of several such artificial intelligence (AI)-based apps that aim to help anyone with a smartphone catch a slew of skin diseases – including lethal cancers – earlier than ever. The latest entrant is Google's Derm Assist, a tool that aims to help users detect more than 288 common skin conditions. Almost 10bn internet users search for terms related to skin conditions each year, says Peggy Bui, a product manager at Google. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:19 AM PDT NSW to lift ban on weddings, allowing up to five guests; Western Australia releases sites visited by Covid-positive NSW truck drivers. Follow live
It's time to wrap things up for another day. Here are today's main events:
It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply. In this piece by Oliver Franklin-Wallis, some of the people involved in the creation of the AstraZenca vaccine tell their story of the race against Covid-19. Continue reading... |
| ‘Bad options all around’: Biden’s vow to avenge Kabul attack could take years Posted: 27 Aug 2021 09:44 AM PDT Joe Biden's options are limited in short-term as US troops withdraw from Afghanistan in days American spies and special forces will be able to hunt down those behind Thursday's suicide bombing in Kabul, although the effort may take years, experts and former CIA officials believe. Joe Biden vowed on Thursday to avenge the 13 US service members who died in a suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport, declaring to the extremists responsible: "We will hunt you down and make you pay." Continue reading... |
| Michel Barnier joins long list of leaders vying to unite French centre-right Posted: 27 Aug 2021 07:50 AM PDT Analysis: Les Républicains face complex battle to find 2022 presidential candidate to rival Macron and Marine Le Pen This week's declaration by Michel Barnier, the former EU chief negotiator on Brexit, that he aims to run for French president has added to the uncertainty of a crowded field of candidates competing to represent the traditional right in next spring's election. The rightwing Les Républicains, the party of the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, is facing an increasingly complex battle to identify a 2022 presidential candidate to rival the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen, who, polls currently show, could once again face one another in the final. Continue reading... |
| Biden doesn't want Kabul attackers 'to live on planet Earth any more', says Psaki – video Posted: 27 Aug 2021 02:26 PM PDT The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, underlined Joe Biden's comments on Thursday's attack on Kabul airport, saying: 'I think he made it clear he doesn't want them to live on planet Earth any more.' Biden's national security team has warned him that US troops remain under threat of another terrorist attack just 24 hours after the devastating suicide bomb at Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members and at least 90 Afghans. Continue reading... |
| Caldor fire burns on both sides of US Highway 50, footage shows – video Posted: 27 Aug 2021 12:01 PM PDT The Caldor fire continued its slow march toward the Lake Tahoe resort region on Friday. If the fire continues its path, fire crews plan to make a stand at Echo Summit, a mountain pass where US Route 50 begins its descent toward Lake Tahoe. The fire has been the nation's top firefighting priority because of its proximity to Lake Tahoe, a popular tourist destination that is home to thousands Continue reading... |
| Andrew Quilty documents 12 days of chaos in Kabul – in pictures Posted: 27 Aug 2021 04:03 AM PDT The Australian photojournalist has been working in the Afghan capital as troops from the US, UK and Australia withdraw. A period culminating in two suicide bombings, which tore through crowds trying to enter Hamid Karzai international airport Continue reading... |
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