World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk


Human-induced global heating ‘causes over a third of heat deaths’

Posted: 31 May 2021 08:00 AM PDT

Between 1991 and 2018, human activity contributed to 37% of all heat-related deaths in locations studied

More than a third of all heat-related deaths around the world between 1991 and 2018 can be attributed to human-induced global heating, research has found.

Climate breakdown has a range of effects ranging from wildfires to extreme weather. As the temperatures rise, more intense and frequent heatwaves disproportionately affect elderly people and those with underlying chronic conditions such as asthma, making them more vulnerable to disease and premature death.

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Far-right politician would be Israel’s next PM in proposed deal

Posted: 31 May 2021 05:34 AM PDT

Yair Lapid says Naftali Bennett would serve first in proposed post-Netanyahu power-sharing deal

The far-right Israeli politician Naftali Bennett will be the country's next prime minister under a proposed power-sharing deal intended to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the opposition has confirmed.

Yair Lapid said in a speech on Monday that his efforts to forge a coalition of ideologically opposed parties could lead to a new government within days, and with it, Netanyahu's removal from office after 12 years in power.

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From a forest in Papua New Guinea to a floor in Sydney: how China is getting rich off Pacific timber

Posted: 31 May 2021 01:00 PM PDT

China is the major buyer of wood from Pacific nations like PNG and Solomon Islands, which are implicated in illegal or unsustainable logging

  • Read more of our Pacific Plunder series here

An illegally logged tree, felled in the diminishing forests of Papua New Guinea, may well end up becoming floorboards in a Sydney living room, or a bookcase in a home in Seattle.

Illegal logging contributes between 15% and 30% of the global wood trade, according to Interpol. China is a major buyer of the world's illegal timber, according to environmental groups, especially from Pacific nations like PNG and Solomon Islands, which are implicated in illegal or unsustainable logging.

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Naomi Osaka withdraws from French Open amid row over press conferences

Posted: 31 May 2021 11:28 AM PDT

  • World No 2 pulls out of event after being fined by organisers
  • Osaka says speaking to press causes her 'huge anxiety'

Naomi Osaka has announced her withdrawal from Roland Garros one day after she was fined $15,000 by the French Open and warned that she could face expulsion from the tournament following her decision not to speak with the press during the tournament.

Osaka, 23, who won her first match against Patricia Maria Tig and was scheduled to face Ana Bogdan in the second round, had released a statement last Wednesday stating her intention to skip her media obligations during Roland Garros because of the effects of her interactions with the press on her mental health.

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EU plans to lift Covid quarantine rules for vaccinated from 1 July

Posted: 31 May 2021 07:02 AM PDT

Deadline set for all 27 EU countries to accept digital passport in time to enjoy a 'safe and relaxing summer'

The starting pistol has been fired on a "relaxing" summer holiday season for people living in the EU from 1 July, as Brussels proposed lifting all quarantine obligations on those who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

From Tuesday, a system will be ready to allow member states to issue a digital Covid passport to citizens proving their status and freeing them up to travel.

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Senior figures attack ‘obstruction’ of ICC’s Palestine investigation

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:00 PM PDT

Exclusive: Open letter signed by dozens of European ex-officials calls for end to 'unwarranted public criticism' of inquiry into alleged war crimes

More than 50 former foreign ministers, prime ministers and senior international officials, including two British Conservative former ministers, have signed an open letter condemning political interference in efforts by the international criminal court (ICC) to investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine.

The letter follows moves by the Trump administration to sanction court officials – orders that have since been reversed by the Biden administration – and is also seen as a rebuke of Boris Johnson, the British prime minister.

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Britons face one-month deadline to retain rights in four EU countries

Posted: 31 May 2021 11:43 AM PDT

Tens of thousands have yet to apply for post-Brexit residence in countries with 30 June cut-off date

Tens of thousands of British nationals in four EU member states have yet to apply for post-Brexit residence, meaning they risk losing the right to live and work there unless they file their demands within 30 days.

UK citizens living in France, Malta, Luxembourg and Latvia have until 30 June to apply to secure their post-Brexit rights. The Netherlands did have the same deadline, but on Monday extended it to 1 October.

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Denmark helped US spy on Angela Merkel and European allies – report

Posted: 31 May 2021 07:34 AM PDT

Media reports claim US National Security Agency used Danish cables to spy on senior officials

Reports that Denmark's military intelligence agency helped the US to spy on leading European politicians, including the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have sparked concern – and demands for an explanation – in EU capitals.

Danish public broadcaster Danmarks Radio said the US National Security Agency (NSA), whose alleged tapping of Merkel's phone was disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013, also used the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) to spy on officials in Sweden, Norway and France.

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Sri Lanka faces disaster as burning ship spills chemicals on beaches

Posted: 31 May 2021 05:48 AM PDT

Debris has killed marine life and is being seen as country's worst environmental catastrophe

Sri Lanka is facing the worst environmental disaster in its history after a cargo ship carrying chemicals caught fire off its coast, spilling microplastics across the country's pristine beaches and killing marine life.

The fire on MV X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-registered ship, broke out on 20 May and has been burning ever since. The Sri Lankan navy and Indian coastguard have been trying to reduce the flames for more than 10 days.

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Four more Oath Keepers indicted for participating in Capitol attack

Posted: 31 May 2021 06:16 AM PDT

New indictment is part of a larger criminal conspiracy case that now includes 19 members of the far-right group

Four additional members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group that took part in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January, have been indicted for participating in the event.

Court documents unsealed on Sunday named three individuals living in Florida – Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, and William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee. The three appeared last Thursday before US magistrates in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Orlando. A fourth person's name was hidden.

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Overconfident of spotting fake news? If so, you may be more likely to fall victim

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:00 PM PDT

Study suggests people who are most sure of their ability to discern fact from fiction are less likely to do so

Are you a purveyor of fake news? People who are most confident about their ability to discern between fact and fiction are also the most likely to fall victim to misinformation, a US study suggests.

Although Americans believe the confusion caused by false news is all-pervasive, relatively few indicate having seen or shared it, something the researchers suggested shows that many may not only have a hard time identifying false news but are not aware of their own deficiencies at doing so.

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Scientists call on UK to speed up second Covid jabs as India variant spreads

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:20 PM PDT

Government urged to delay decision on ending lockdown restrictions amid fears of third wave

Scientists are urging the government to speed up second doses of Covid vaccines and delay a decision on easing lockdown restrictions in England on 21 June in an effort to tackle the creeping spread of new cases.

Data has shown the coronavirus variant first detected in India, known as B.1.617.2, is continuing to spread across England, and is thought to be driving a rise in cases. It is believed to be both more transmissible than the variant first detected in Kent, which previously dominated, and somewhat more resistant to Covid vaccines, particularly after one dose.

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Covid: France enforces tighter restrictions on travel from UK

Posted: 31 May 2021 06:27 AM PDT

Rules on non-essential journeys toughened amid concerns over spread of India variant from Britain

France has begun restricting non-essential travel from the UK due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus variant first identified in India.

The regulations were announced last week but came into force from Monday when entry to France from Britain is permitted only for EU nationals, French residents or people travelling for "compelling reasons". The rules apply to all air, car, ferry and train passengers, and to people who have been vaccinated.

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In rich countries, vaccines are making Covid-19 a manageable health issue | Devi Sridhar

Posted: 31 May 2021 05:54 AM PDT

For the UK and elsewhere the pandemic's end is in sight, but less fortunate parts of the world urgently need help

When Covid-19 began to spread rapidly in January 2020, governments across the world had limited strategies to deal with it. Without a vaccine or proven treatments for the disease, or even access to mass testing, the only choice political leaders faced was taking the least bad option available.

There were four approaches that different governments took during the beginning of the pandemic. China, New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand chose to eliminate the virus at the cost of stopping international travel. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea suppressed the virus through rigorous testing, tracing and isolating while avoiding harsh lockdowns. Sweden allowed the virus to spread through the population before realising health systems could not cope with an influx of Covid-19 patients. Meanwhile, European countries including England and France controlled the virus through a cycle of lockdown measures while keeping borders largely open. This resembled a holding pattern for a plane running out of fuel: people grew tired of continual restrictions, the economy suffered and Covid-19 was never fully suppressed.

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‘Too much of a burden’: Chinese couples react to three-child policy

Posted: 31 May 2021 09:28 AM PDT

China has announced that couples will be permitted to have up to three children. What do couples think of the policy change?

Jia Shicong is a 31-year-old education project manager. She is married to Hu Xuancheng, also 31, an engineer. They have a baby girl who is one year and seven months old. They live in Xi'an, in central China

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Man in Black at 50: Johnny Cash’s empathy is needed more than ever

Posted: 31 May 2021 07:00 AM PDT

The country star is not always remembered for his politics, but his about-face to withdraw support for Nixon and the Vietnam war may be his finest moment

"I speak my mind in a lot of these songs," Johnny Cash wrote in the liner notes to the album Man in Black, released 50 years ago today. He might be better known now for the outlaw songs of his youth or the reckonings with death in his final recordings, but Cash used his 1971 album to set out his less-discussed political vision: long on feeling and empathy, and short on ideology and partisanship. The United States seemed hopelessly polarised, and Cash confronted that division head-on, demanding more of his fellow citizens and Christians amid the apparently endless war in Vietnam.

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‘A kind of rat with thorns’: the comic book busting myths about the Madras hedgehog

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:30 AM PDT

The elusive nocturnal creature is rarely seen in Tamil Nadu. One ecologist has made it his mission to spread the word through colourful adventures

The brightly coloured panels of Brawin Kumar's comic book tell the story of how two children rescue a hedgehog from an unlicensed medicine man. The mother hedgehog is delighted to be reunited with her little one, as she has lost most of her offspring to road traffic.

Kumar, an Indian researcher and ecologist, came up with the idea of writing the book in Tamil to create awareness among children who live in and around the Madras hedgehog's habitat. Many of those children will never have seen the nocturnal creature, which, unlike the British hedgehog, aestivates (lies in a state of torpor or dormancy) in the summer instead of hibernating in the winter.

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Mare of Easttown finale review – Kate Winslet drama is a stunning, harrowing success

Posted: 31 May 2021 02:15 PM PDT

The actor's turn as a complex, fallible detective has been a privilege to witness, in a murder mystery that kept us guessing right to the profoundly moving end

In interviews, Kate Winslet always said it wasn't a thriller. And she was right. Yes, Mare of Easttown (Sky Atlantic) began with a murder in a small, bleak Pennsylvania town and Winslet's police detective Mare Sheehan being called upon to investigate. But it was almost immediately clear that the seven-part drama was setting up to be so much more – and even clearer soon after that it was likely to succeed in all its endeavours.

It was a character study, of how a woman ground down by life after the loss of a son to drugs and suicide, the consequent divorce from her husband and raising of her grandson in the face of a custody battle with his mother (her son's former girlfriend, rehabbed but fragile) endures.

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How we met: ‘I mistakenly drank his contact lenses’

Posted: 31 May 2021 03:00 AM PDT

Hannah and Nav, both 34, met at university in 2005. After an awkward start they became a couple and now live together in St Albans with their two children

The first photograph of Hannah and Nav was taken in freshers' week, when they started at Cambridge University in 2005. "We must have been introduced then but neither of us can remember it," says Hannah. "That whole week was a bit of a blur." She does remember seeing him around campus. "He had grey contact lenses, which looked striking on an Indian person." Hannah was living on a busy corridor, and Nav would often visit to socialise. "I remember she looked really hard to impress. I think I was a bit scared of her," he says.

During the second year, they joined the same hockey team and got to know each other better. In early 2007, they went to Dublin together on a sports trip, where the friendship started to blossom. By the third year they had become flirty, but it wasn't until Nav sent a drunken Facebook message that Hannah knew how he felt. "I wrote our surnames with the word 'relationship' and a question mark, then a load of Ps because I fell asleep on my keyboard," he laughs. He deleted it the next day, but Hannah had already received the email alert. "I could see he'd sent me this drunk message and deleted it but I was actually really happy," she says.

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Romeo and Juliet remixed: how technology can change storytelling

Posted: 31 May 2021 10:30 AM PDT

With the touch of a button, a Sydney Opera House audience rewrites Shakespeare as it is performed in front of them

On Sunday, as part of the Sydney Opera House's UnWrapped series, a group of dancers "remixed" Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by way of an Australian storytelling technology, Omelia. A product built to shuffle characters and events and generate narrative possibilities in real time, dancers using it brought a new version of the classic tragedy to life. The one-off production, R+J RMX, was filmed for the Opera House's streaming platform.

The "remix" was interactive: audience members were sent to a website where they could restructure the play with the touch of a button, while on stage narrators and dancers ran through numerous renditions of the story.

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Search for boy in Thames two miles from where woman’s body was recovered

Posted: 31 May 2021 01:50 PM PDT

Emergency services are seeking a teenager who was seen getting into difficulty in the water

Emergency services were searching the Thames on Monday for a teenage boy who was seen getting into difficulty in the water, hours after the body of a woman was recovered from the river two miles away.

Thames Valley police said on Twitter that officers were at the river between Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, and Cookham, Berkshire on Monday, following a report of a fear-for-welfare incident.

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Attacks on the ICC must be condemned

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:00 PM PDT

Attempts to discredit the international criminal court and obstruct its work cannot be tolerated if we are serious about upholding justice globally, write more than 50 former prime ministers, foreign ministers and senior international officials

We welcome the support that European leaders have expressed for the international criminal court and its unique mandate of advancing justice following war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Consistent support for the ICC and promotion of its universal reach highlight Europe's serious commitment to deter such violations and to promote a rules-based international order, peace and security.

It is clear that Europe has long benefited from multilateralism rooted in international law and the institutions that uphold it. Now, in a time of increasing challenges to the multilateral order and an independent judiciary in many corners of the world and within Europe itself, preserving the ICC's legitimacy and mandate becomes an imperative.

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The true story of the fake US embassy in Ghana – podcast

Posted: 31 May 2021 04:00 AM PDT

In 2016, the US state department said it had uncovered a fake embassy in Accra that had been issuing a stream of forged visas. The story went viral – but all was not as it seemed. By Yepoka Yeebo


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Texas Republicans plot to resurrect restrictive voting bill after Democrats’ walkout

Posted: 31 May 2021 01:22 PM PDT

Governor Greg Abbott plans to call special session after Democrats block 11th-hour attempt to ram through bill to make voting harder

Republicans in Texas are already plotting to resurrect their fight for sweeping voting restrictions after Democratic lawmakers walked out of the state capitol and blocked an 11th-hour attempt to ram through legislation that would have made it harder to cast a ballot.

Texas governor Greg Abbott – who leads the state's domineering Republican majority – has announced he will include the high-stakes issue on his agenda when he reconvenes the legislature for a rapid-fire special session. He called the failure of the bill "deeply disappointing".

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Copa América moved from Argentina to Brazil just 13 days before kick-off

Posted: 31 May 2021 07:29 AM PDT

  • Conmebol statement confirms surprise move to Brazil
  • Argentina is experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases

The South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) has announced Brazil as the new hosts of this summer's Copa América, with Argentina replaced just 13 days before the tournament is due to begin.

"The Copa América 2021 will be played in Brazil," an official Conmebol statement said. "Tournament start and end dates are confirmed. The venues and the fixtures will be announced by Conmebol in the next few hours."

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Victoria records three more Covid cases amid speculation over lockdown extension

Posted: 31 May 2021 04:34 PM PDT

Minister Richard Colbeck comes under fire over aged care failures after outbreak in two Melbourne homes. Follow live updates

Rachel Siewert asks Richard Colbeck whether he has heard reports aged care workers are being asked by some providers (their bosses) to get vaccinated on their day off.

Colbeck has not heard that.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert can't understand why the government doesn't know how many aged care workers have been vaccinated. Richard Colbeck says they are asking providers for that information now, after a previous system of "voluntary reporting".

Siewert is trying to understand why it wasn't made mandatory in the first place. Colbeck says they are doing that now.

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‘Huge incentives to kill’: Mexico crime groups target election candidates

Posted: 31 May 2021 04:00 AM PDT

At least 34 candidates have been murdered since campaigning began in April, with the assassination clear-up rate close to zero

Tuesday started off like any other day on the campaign trail for José Alberto Alonso, a union leader running for mayor in the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco: he kissed his family goodbye, boarded his Nissan Extreme SUV and headed off to start knocking on doors.

But barely 200m from his home, a motorcycle closed in and the pillion passenger pulled a handgun, peppering the car with bullets. Alonso's bodyguard returned fire, and the attackers fled. The candidate had escaped injury, but was later sent to hospital suffering from stress.

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‘Sponsor a child’ schemes attacked for perpetuating racist attitudes

Posted: 30 May 2021 11:30 PM PDT

Using individual children to 'sell' schemes to rich donors is similar to 'poverty porn' images of past, say experts, as calls grow to decolonise aid

International child sponsorship schemes have come under attack for perpetuating racist thinking, as an apology by a charity to thousands of children in Sri Lanka has sparked a debate over the money-raising schemes.

Plan International last week admitted it had made "mistakes" over its exit from Sri Lanka in 2020, following criticism from donors and former employees that it had failed 20,000 vulnerable children in the country.

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Attractiveness of British military for far right continues to be a threat

Posted: 31 May 2021 10:30 AM PDT

Analysis: There have been multiple investigations under the Prevent counter-terrorism programme

The attractiveness of the armed forces for the far right is as old as British fascism's earliest incarnations.

During the extreme right's periodic postwar resurgences, groups such as Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and later the National Front also coveted recruits from the military's ranks.

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If India variant starts a third wave, England’s Covid rules may have to stay

Posted: 31 May 2021 10:03 AM PDT

Analysis: hopes of restrictions ending on 21 June are dwindling as highly transmissible variant spreads

Heralded as "freedom day", 21 June has been a date circled in the diary by businesses, families and communities alike – a moment when coronavirus restrictions in England are expected to finally end, hopefully in a blaze of summer sunshine.

But new data has revealed that the variant of concern first detected in India, known as B.1.617.2, has continued to spread across England, with samples containing the variant now found from Cornwall to Canterbury, Bury to Bromley.

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'Democracy itself is in peril': Biden delivers Memorial Day speech – video

Posted: 31 May 2021 11:12 AM PDT

Joe Biden warned in a speech commemorating the US's war dead on Memorial Day that American democracy was 'in peril' and called for empathy among his fellow citizens.

Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, the president, joined by the first lady, Jill Biden, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband, paid tribute to America's war dead

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Sri Lanka faces environmental disaster as cargo ship burns for days – video

Posted: 31 May 2021 06:46 AM PDT

Aerial footage shows a cargo ship carrying chemicals on fire off the Sri Lankan coast. The fire on MV X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-registered ship, broke out on 20 May and has been burning ever since, spilling microplastics across Sri Lanka's beaches and killing marine life in what could be the worst environmental disaster in its history. The Sri Lankan navy and Indian coastguard have been trying to reduce the flames for more than 10 days

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‘Right thing to do’: Afghan interpreters allowed to resettle in UK over safety fears – video

Posted: 31 May 2021 02:07 AM PDT

Moves to relocate hundreds of Afghans who worked for the British military and government will be accelerated owing to fears for their safety as foreign forces prepare to leave the country. More than 3,000 Afghans, including their relatives, are expected to settle in the UK. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said it was 'the right thing to do', adding that 'they sacrificed a lot to look after us and now we're going to do the same'

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1921 Tulsa race massacre remembered – in pictures

Posted: 31 May 2021 01:18 AM PDT

One of the darkest chapters in the long and turbulent history of racial violence in America is commemorated in Oklahoma on Monday, the 100th anniversary of a rampage by a white mob that left an estimated 300 Black people dead. Hundreds of Black-owned businesses, churches and homes were burned, leaving about 8,000 homeless and a further 800 injured

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An act of terrorism America tried to forget – 360 video

Posted: 31 May 2021 12:00 AM PDT

On the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, artist Bayeté Ross Smith uses archival photos to create immersive 360 scenes of these events. He finds that the underlying political and economic injustices were not only never addressed, but repeated time and again over the past century.

This story was suppressed from history books and the white perpetrators were never held accountable. And it wasn't just Tulsa. Dozens of other racial terrorism events from 1917 to 1921 have also gone untold, even within the victims' families. 

This is part one of Red Summers, a 360 video series by artist and filmmaker Bayeté Ross Smith on the untold American history of racial terrorism from 1917 to 1921. The project is funded by Black Public Media, Eyebeam, Sundance Institute, Crux XR and the Open Society Foundations.

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Bennett and Netanyahu address public as opposition figures reach deal – video

Posted: 30 May 2021 01:23 PM PDT

The rightwing Israeli politician Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid have agreed to forge a coalition government that would oust the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after 12 years in power. 

In a televised address, Bennett announced his intention to form 'a national unity government' alongside Lapid. Minutes after the speech ended, Netanyahu went on air to rail against Bennett

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Police believe victims at Florida banquet shooting were targeted – video

Posted: 30 May 2021 10:26 AM PDT

At least two people were killed and more than 20 injured in Miami early on Sunday as attackers opened fire on concertgoers outside a banquet hall. It was the city's second deadly mass shooting in little more than 24 hours.

Alfredo Ramirez of Miami-Dade police department confirmed that two people died at the scene and '20 to 25' people  were in hospital.

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