Poland’s foreign minister says Putin’s plane could be escorted down and Russian president handed to The Hague
A lawyer for Nicolas Sarkozy said a motion had been filed for his release moments after the former French president entered jail, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Attorney Christophe Ingrain told reporters:
A request has been filed for Nicolas Sarkozy’s release.
The theft of the crown jewels is another blow to national prestige, but far greater is the threat of a monarchical president hoarding power against voters’ wishes
The world is now gripped by the spectacular (and literal daylight) robbery perpetrated on the world’s most famous art museum on Sunday morning. As visitors queued to get in to the Louvre, thieves were escaping out of another wing, after a raid on the crown jewels that took just seven minutes. The story could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood movie or an episode of the French mystery thriller series Lupin.
Yet, although this outrageous theft has stunned France, it was perhaps a fitting act of larceny for a country that has just been the victim of another incredible heist. From one Monday to the next the French people were swindled into thinking we were getting a new government. The political drama left many of us feeling like confused characters in Groundhog Day, but perhaps the closer symbolism is to be found in the surreal theft at the Louvre.
Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist
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New leader had promised levels of female representation comparable to those in Iceland, where six of cabinet of 11 are women
Sanae Takaichi made history on Tuesday when she became Japan’s first female prime minister. But hours after she was elected by MPs, it was evident that female under representation in the country’s political establishment would continue when she appointed just two women to her cabinet.
Takaichi had promised levels of female representation in her government comparable to those in Iceland, Finland and Norway.
New rule would prohibit states from banning dangerous chemicals, and could invalidate hundreds of protections
A new rule proposed by the Trump administration would dramatically weaken safety reviews for some of the nation’s most toxic chemicals that are already on the market, public health advocates and an EPA employee warn.
Many of the chemicals that would receive less scrutiny are among the nation’s most dangerous substances, including PFAS, formaldehyde, asbestos and dioxins. Each poses serious health risks in consumer goods, or for workers handling the substances, advocates say.
I fled war at 14 and decades later became a US citizen. Now I fear racism and exclusion could become official policy
Last week, leaked documents from the Trump administration reportedly revealed plans to gut the US refugee program, not only capping refugee resettlement at a record low of 7,500, but also transforming it from a life-saving humanitarian system into one that favors white South Africans and Europeans over the world’s most vulnerable people. As a refugee who found safety and belonging in this country, I broke into a sweat reading the news. Memories of my own journey rushed back, now mixed with a deeper fear that racism and exclusion are not just social undercurrents, but official policy.
I was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and fled war at 14, spending nearly two decades in a refugee camp in Uganda before finally being resettled in the United States. Here, I reunited with my family, built a new life, and became a citizen. My story is one of patience, resilience and gratitude for a country that gave me safety and the chance to rebuild my life and give back.
Bahati Kanyamanza is a former refugee who spent about 25 years in a Ugandan refugee camp and as a refugee in the US before he became a naturalized US citizen. He is the global partnerships director at the International Refugee Assistance Project
In this emotionally smart adventure for older kids, a 10-year-old girl’s drawings magically come off the page and wreak havoc
The Goonies meets Godzilla in this brilliantly fun, imaginative and emotionally smart adventure for older kids. It’s about a 10-year-old girl named Amber (Bianca Belle) whose drawings of monsters magically come to life and wreak all kinds of havoc. Since they are the product of a 10-year-old brain, and drawn with felt-tip pens, the monsters are mostly a cute bunch of fuzzballs with googly eyes, burping up glitter. Though be warned, one or two near the end could spook even adult audiences.
Things start to go wrong for Amber after she is caught drawing a picture of herself stabbing a classmate – loudmouth, obnoxious Bowman (Kalon Cox). Amber lives with her big brother Jack (Kue Lawrence) and their lovely dad (Tony Hale); her mum has recently died, and there’s a funny scene around the dinner table as her brother Jack looks up on his phone if they are orphans, resulting in Amber coining the phrase “morphan” (as in maternal orphan).
Little more than clean jars, salt water and time are needed to get you on the path to perfect pickles
I love ferments and want to start making my own to save money. Where should I start? Ben, by email “Maybe with some carrots, onions, cucumber or beetroot – anything Ben has an excess of,” says Connor Wilson, head chef at The Kirkstyle Inn in Slaggyford, Northumberland. “Fermentation is a great way of preserving produce, but it won’t give new life to things that are past their best.”
That said, tired-looking carrots would be perfect for Olia Hercules’ go-to for newbie fermenters: “If they look dehydrated but without any rotting, they’re amazing to ferment,” says the author of Strong Roots. “The sugars concentrate and you get this bright carrot flavour.” Start by slicing carrots (“the thinner or smaller the pieces, the quicker they’ll ferment”), then make a brine by mixing 35g rock or sea salt (“don’t use table salt”) with a litre of water (“tap is fine, filtered is better”), and making sure the salt dissolves. You can then go as fancy or simple as you like: “Drop in some peppercorns, allspice berries, coriander seeds, fennel seeds or anything else you think might go, bring the brine mix up to a simmer, then take off the heat and leave to infuse and cool to room temperature.” Pop the sliced carrots in a sterilised jar, then fill with the brine, making sure the veg are fully submerged: “You don’t want any sticking out and meeting the air, because that’s when bad bacteria can attach.” Hercules then leaves the sealed jar(s) for a few days until signs of fermentation emerge – “The brine will turn opaque, and you’ll see some bubbles” – then taste, taste, taste: “Once the carrots are nice and sour, stick the jar in the fridge.”
The AI-generated host of Dispatches raises worrying questions about Channel 4’s environmental impact. She’s also a dead-eyed host who might leave Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Kevin McCloud fearing for their future
Last night’s Dispatches was called Will AI Take My Job? Usually when something like this employs a question mark in the title, it’s because the answer is no. Not this time, though, because the sheer overwhelming inevitability of AI taking our jobs is genuinely painful to think about.
According to the film, 8m jobs in the UK alone are at risk of being outsourced by AI. Call centre workers, translators, graphic designers – anyone who isn’t a masseur or a scaffolder, basically – will soon be made redundant by a technology that, despite its catastrophic effect on the environment, is growing more sophisticated by the hour. My days are almost certainly numbered; it stands to reason that I will soon be replaced by the ChatGPT prompt “Be performatively exasperated about whatever was just on the telly”. Grok could even whip up a byline photo of an unpleasantly smug egg to go with it. Nobody would be any the wiser.
The Oscar-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan has let slip that an alarming number of actors go commando to fittings. The profession has rarely felt more alien
Jenny Beavan is a living legend in the world of film. A three-time Oscar-winning costume designer, she gave Merchant Ivory films their distinctive look but was equally responsible for the visual onslaught of Mad Max: Fury Road.
In 2016, her decision to attend various awards shows wearing unconventional fashion captured the zeitgeist twice; first when Stephen Fry called her a “bag lady” and was forced off Twitter, and second when a clip of Alejandro González Iñárritu glowering as she passed him went viral. In other words, Jenny Beavan can do whatever the hell she likes.
Exclusive: sources say the agency is providing real-time intelligence collected by satellites and signal intercepts
The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations. Experts say the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.
The agency’s central role in the boat strikes has not previously been disclosed. Donald Trump confirmed last Wednesday that he had authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela, but not what the agency would be doing.
After overdoses left them with brain injuries and lasting complications, Americans are struggling to get proper care. Experts call it another epidemic
John-Bryan “JB” Jarrett was supposed to be fishing on the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, September 2020. Over dinner the night before, he told his mom, Jessica, he wanted to be on the water by 7am.
Jessica and JB were unusually close. When her work brought her to Austin, she stayed in his spare room; when the pandemic hit, she moved in for good. Despite a full life – a girlfriend, a job, a side hustle running an online thrift store – he welcomed her. They planted vegetables, packed meals for homeless people, watched true crime, even shared their phone locations.
Construction of offices, shops and warehouses in the UK has fallen to the lowest level in more than a decade amid rising build costs and uncertainty.
All commercial sectors have been hit, with construction across office, retail and industrial sectors down by 21% to 5.85m sq metres (63m sq ft) in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, according to the latest data from CoStar.
Former Ipswich academy footballer fights Joseph Parker hoping victory will earn him a world title shot at Oleksandr Usyk, who he once went to Ukraine to spar with
“Joseph Parker was a world heavyweight champion in 2016 when I was still having white collar fights,” Fabio Wardley says of the contrasting career paths he and his opponent have taken before their crucial bout at the O2 in London on Saturday. “So it’s been a wild, wild journey for us to reach this point. And if I get through this fight I’ll get a chance to meet Oleksandr Usyk. Fighting Usyk for the world title would be a funny story, remembering how I went to Ukraine to spar him seven years ago. It would feel like I’ve come full circle.”
We’re sitting in the back room of a gym in Wardley’s home town of Ipswich and the amiable and intelligent 30-year-old, who is unbeaten after 20 professional contests, allows himself to get a little excited before confronting the serious threat of Parker. He nods when I suggest that it sounds like an outlandish boxing movie or overheated drama series.
Gaza officials say 600 trucks of aid were supposed to enter daily, but the number actually arriving is below 90
Gaza’s Government Media Office has posted to Telegram to say only 986 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire began just over a week ago, out of the 6,600 trucks that it says were supposed to have arrived by Monday evening.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said:
The humanitarian convoys included (14) trucks loaded with cooking gas and (28) diesel trucks designated to operate bakeries, generators, hospitals and various vital sectors, in light of the severe shortage of these vital materials that the population directly depends on for daily life, after long months of siege and systematic destruction caused by the genocide committed by the “Israeli” occupation against our people in the Gaza Strip.
We note that the average number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip daily since the ceasefire began does not exceed (89) trucks out of (600) trucks that are supposed to enter daily, which reflects the continued policy of strangulation, starvation and humanitarian blackmail practiced by the occupation against more than (2.4) million citizens in Gaza.
The content guardrails introduced this week feel like hollow posturing after the failure of past promises
For months, Instagram has been struggling to convince parents, advocates and officials that it’s a safe place for kids, even though there’s a mountain of evidence to show quite the opposite. Now, the company is introducing yet another set of guardrails that will supposedly keep teens on the platform safe. But going by their track record, parents shouldn’t be smiling yet.
Starting this week, all users aged under 18 will automatically be placed into the 13+ setting, which restricts their feed to content that meets the standards of the US PG-13 movie rating.
He is the most popular UK politician on one of the world’s most popular social media sites. Working out what that means is actually surprisingly difficult
There’s a famous clip that still does the rounds on social media, which is weird, because it’s Russia Today, hardly regular viewing, it happened in 2017, a fairly long time ago, and it was on the show Sam Delaney’s News Thing, which was never appointment viewing. In it, Nigel Farage is ceremonially knighted by a girl of about seven, who then says: “My mummy says you hate foreigners.” Delaney cuts in, “No no no, little girl”, and Nige falls about laughing, because good old Nigel, he’s always game for a laugh.
Pause on whether or not Farage hates foreigners; the reason I can do an impression of the little girl is that every teenager I know is pitch perfect on all three parts – the girl, Delaney, Farage. Whenever people say, “Is it bad that Nigel Farage is the only politician my kids have heard of? Should I worry?”, I try in vain to think, “No, this is nothing to worry about – this is just a peculiar moment that went viral, the wind changed and it stayed like that.”
Film-makers Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti play new owners of a haunted house in a DIY effort that is fun but fatally unscary
Scary found-footage movies can and do get better than this enthusiastic DIY horror from married-couple directors Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti. Their zero-budget feature is fun for a while, but in the end it’s just not scary enough. There is nothing to make jump out of your skin or frighten you out of your senses. Kempt and Toti also star in the film, playing fictional versions of themselves: Rachel and Nick, horror-obsessed film-makers living in Kirksville, Missouri. Things go wrong after they buy a house on the cheap to shoot a haunted house movie. (Which sounds unrealistic, but you can actually buy a fixer-upper in Kirksville for less than $30,000)
The idea is that we are watching behind the scenes documentary footage shot by Nick, who provides a forlorn voiceover: “I wish I never filmed any of it.” At first, the new house seems the perfect setting for a horror movie: there’s some satanic graffiti inside, a door that looks as though someone has taken an axe to it, even some creepy little portraits of stern-faced Victorians. The pair’s easygoing, self-satirising banter is good fun as Rachel considers the ways in which their haunted house might actually kill them: “We are literally inhaling rat faeces!”
Idea that apes at closed-down zoo have been abandoned is ridiculous, says CEO, after urban explorer’s video made headlines
A rainy afternoon in Bristol but the troop of western lowland gorillas did not seem to mind the damp and were foraging for snacks of lettuce and cereal scattered around their zoo enclosure.
To the untrained eye, their expressions might be described as lugubrious, but Sarah Gedman, the curator of mammals at Bristol Zoological Society (BZS), insisted the apes were perfectly relaxed and in tune with each other. “They’re not sad at all,” said Gedman.
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