Meta chief executive paid roughly €20m for gothic-style mansion built in 1830 and its surroundings
It stretches the definition of pied-à-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle.
The Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland.
Continue reading...Bonnier Books will no longer publish UK’s top-selling true crime author following Guardian investigation
The main publisher of the bestselling true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee has dropped the author after a Guardian investigation into allegations of violence and sexual abuse against him, which he denies. Waterstones has also removed his books from sale.
“We are shocked and appalled by the very serious allegations relating to Christopher Berry-Dee, and our thoughts are with those affected,” said the publisher Bonnier Books in a statement to the Guardian.
Continue reading...Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books
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A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.
Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.
Continue reading...Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books
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A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.
Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.
Continue reading...Panettiere’s death was announced by her father, who called her ‘an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy’
Hayden Panettiere, the actor known for her roles in television shows such as Heroes and Nashville, has died at the age of 36.
Panettiere’s death was confirmed in a statement from her representative to the Guardian on Sunday night, after it was first reported on US network ABC News. No cause of death was given.
Continue reading...Neill won for his performance in legal thriller The Twelve: Cape Rock Killer, at a ceremony dominated by wins for the ABC
Sam Neill has won a posthumous best actor award at Australia’s biggest television awards, the Logies, with comedian Sam Pang taking home the night’s top honour, the Gold Logie award for most popular personality.
Neill, who died in July, won his posthumous Logie for best lead actor in a drama, for his performance in legal thriller The Twelve: Cape Rock Killer. His close friend, the actor Heather Mitchell, accepted the award on his behalf.
Continue reading...Theft of four works on national holiday described as wound to historical memory and cultural identity of city of Messina
Four of the most important works of art by the 15th-century Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen during a national holiday from a museum in the Sicilian port city of Messina.
Thieves gained access to the Regional Museum of Messina, or MuMe, on Saturday evening, possibly capitalising on attention being focused on La Vara, a huge religious festival that takes place in the city on 15 August, when Italy marks the Ferragosto national holiday.
Continue reading...Fans line streets, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart ahead of Welsh singer’s Swansea funeral
Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects to the singer as her coffin was brought back to her former home.
The singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan, died unexpectedly on 8 July in Portugal at the age of 75.
Continue reading...British Museum’s £33 tickets sold out in a day but some slots have been reserved for guests at five-star One Aldwych
Those hoping to snare a glimpse of the Bayeux tapestry when it comes to the British Museum this September faced nine-hour online queues, with the £33 tickets sold out within a day.
But the monied guests of a five-star hotel in Covent Garden have not had to go to such arduous lengths to get a view of the nearly 1,000-year-old depiction of William the Conqueror’s victory over King Harold II of England at Hastings in 1066.
Continue reading...Festival organiser says she has booked next year’s headliners but would not say if Taylor Swift is among them
Madonna will not be performing at next year’s Glastonbury, the festival’s organiser, Emily Eavis, has said.
The singer, who has the most top 10 singles in UK chart history of any female artist, has never featured at Britain’s biggest music festival.
Continue reading...The center has until next week to present plan to judge who had blocked earlier rehab and name change
The board of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington is said to have voted once again to move forward with Donald Trump’s controversial plan to temporarily shutter the building for substantial renovations, as well as to inscribe the US president’s name on the facade of its building, despite a federal order for his name to be removed from the signage.
The board – mostly handpicked, staunch allies of the president – voted “to close the Kennedy Center’s main building, while keeping a newer addition to the campus, known as the Reach, open for limited programming and to operate as an active memorial to John F Kennedy”, according to the New York Times, which was first to report the results.
Continue reading...Kelce’s remarks on his marriage to Swift at Madison Square Garden comes weeks after the event, which remains shrouded in mystery
American football star Travis Kelce has described his secretive early July wedding to pop sensation Taylor Swift as “the best night of my life.”
“I appreciate everybody who came out and celebrated and, you know, had fun with us,” the Kansas City Chiefs player told a briefing.
Continue reading...As social media shrinks and distorts the EU’s crises, the Venice film festival is delivering politically forthright epics from directors such as Sergei Loznitsa and Alex Gibney
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Europe is in an economic crisis that, unlike the eurozone downturn at the beginning of the millennium, cannot be measured in ratings downgrades and borrowing costs. For metrics, try engagement depth and consumer trust instead.
The unedifying spectacle of the European Union’s falling out over the Ceuta crisis looks like the latest symptom of Europe’s shrinking attention economy. When more than 70,000 people crossed over from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta at the start of the month, Rome hastily reintroduced air and sea border checks with Spain for one month; Madrid retaliated with spot-checks on travellers to Italy.
Continue reading...Power cable linking UK and Ireland now passes near Bronze Age human burial remains instead of fictional grave on Welsh beach
Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-pound power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the “grave” of Dobby, a fictional elf.
The character was laid to rest on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Fans of the wizard series come to leave stones reading “Here Lies Dobby” despite being asked not to by the land owner, the National Trust, because the beach is an ecologically sensitive site.
Continue reading...Rage-baiting efforts of Trump accounts silenced after posts such as a video linking her Red album to Republicans
Some of Taylor Swift’s songs have been removed from videos posted on social media by Donald Trump’s campaign and the White House, silencing efforts to mock the pop star.
A video posted 3 August featuring the US president and the first lady, Melania Trump, watching fireworks was posted this month on TikTok with Swift’s song August.
Continue reading...The curator of Norway’s national museum in Oslo is bringing the work by the Flemish baroque artist Clara Peeters out of obscurity in a major exhibition of female artists
Anonymous was often a woman: so said Virginia Woolf. And so thought Cynthia Osiecki one day in 2022, when she chanced on an unattributed still life in the storage area of the National Museum of Norway in Oslo.
Osiecki had been studying the work of a renowned 17th-century Flemish artist, Clara Peeters, one of the earliest practitioners of still life painting. Works by Peeters hang in the Prado in Madrid, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Continue reading...The host tore into ‘wildly invasive’ cameras, microphones and license plate readers that police use to track Americans
John Oliver discussed the tools that police are using to keep track of Americans on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight.
In recent years, the use of surveillance technology has exploded among local police forces due to decreasing prices and federal funding, with one local mayor comparing modern systems to “Big Brother on steroids”.
Continue reading...British band say they are ‘proud to have made this impromptu expression with our fans in Singapore’, where open display of all foreign flags is banned
Massive Attack have called being banned from Singapore a “surreal experience” after displaying a Palestinian flag during their show.
On Wednesday, the English trip-hop collective – whose current lineup includes Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall – played a show at the Star theatre.
Continue reading...Singer was due to reunite with Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey in London production of Sunday in the Park With George
Ariana Grande has announced plans to take a break from public-facing work after her tour ends due to “endless, ongoing public scrutiny”. She is pulling out of the upcoming London revival of Sunday in the Park With George.
The pop singer was due to appear opposite her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey in a new production of Stephen Sondheim’s critically acclaimed musical at the Barbican in 2027.
Continue reading...Veteran actor best-known for playing Salvatore ‘Big Pussy’ Bonpensiero, friend of Tony Soprano who becomes FBI informant
Vincent Pastore, a veteran actor who played mobsters and tough guys, and was best-known for playing Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on The Sopranos, has died. He was 80.
Bob McGowan, who had managed Pastore since his run on The Sopranos, told the Associated Press that he learned of his death Saturday from another client and actor on the show, Vincent Curatola.
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