The industry’s first hijab-wearing model speaks about the ‘internal conflict’ that made her quit the catwalk
Halima Aden, the Muslim model who became a trailblazer for wearing her hijab on the catwalk and in photoshoots, has hit out at the fashion industry and its exploitation of young models.
Aden quit the industry in November 2020, citing compromised beliefs and feeling like a “minority within a minority”.
Continue reading...Group of US states attorneys general unveil settlement including three largest US drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson
A group of US state attorneys general unveiled on Wednesday a landmark $26bn settlement with large drug companies for allegedly fueling the deadly nationwide opioid epidemic, but some states were cool on the agreement.
Under the settlement proposal, the three largest US drug distributors, McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp, are expected to pay a combined $21bn, while drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which manufactures opioids, would pay $5bn.
Continue reading...WHO warns world is set to pass 200m cases within weeks; fivefold increase in Rome cases linked to Euro 2020 celebrations
At least 800 people in Uganda were given fake Covid-19 vaccines in a scam that involved “unscrupulous” doctors and health workers, government officials have said.
The fraudsters took advantage of the deadly coronavirus in May and June to target victims looking to pay for a jab, injecting some with water, while new cases soared to record highs of about 1,700 cases per day and doses were in short supply.
Around nine in 10 adults in all of the UK’s regions are now likely to have Covid-19 antibodies, figures suggest.
In Scotland, 88.6% are estimated to have antibodies, rising to 90.0% for Northern Ireland, 91.9% for England and 92.6% in Wales. Antibodies can be from a previous infection or vaccination.
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Axios is reporting that the Biden administration will not reopen the US consulate in Jerusalem until the after Israel’s new government passes a budget - likely in early November.
The House select committee is set to have its first hearing looking into the 6 January attack on the US Capitol next week, and chairman Bennie Thompson told the Guardian that “nothing is off limits”.
Thompson indicated that Donald Trump and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy are among his top witnesses.
Related: Capitol attack committee chair vows to investigate Trump: ‘Nothing is off limits’
Continue reading...The Bootleg fire in Oregon, now roughly the size of Los Angeles, is so intense that it has created its own weather system, causing winds that have further fanned its flames. It has been burning for two weeks and barely a third of its perimeter has been contained. The Dixie fire in California exploded in size to roughly 94 sq miles (243 sq km) on Tuesday, and is only 15% contained. It broke out on 13 July
Continue reading...Colombian horror about a micro-cult is rather too fascinated by the barbarity of its leader, rather than the daughters he has hidden from the world
This bold and disturbing arthouse horror from first-time feature director Juan Diego Escobar Alzate feels like it could be set sometime in the 19th century. It’s about a tiny religious cult based in the wildly beautiful Colombian mountains: the group’s leader is El Señor (Conrado Osorio), a farmer who looks like a cowboy in the Clint Eastwood mould, with a macho growl; his trio of daughters wear frontier prairie dresses. But we must be closer to the present day: in an early scene the eldest, 23-year-old Laila (Andrea Esquivel), brings him a 1980s cassette player that she has found in the woods and she is spellbound by this unknown contraption. El Señor says the devil lurks inside.
It’s an intriguing set-up, and cinematographer Nicolás Caballero Arenas shoots the lush landscape through what looks like a trippy filter; blazing sunsets and garish rainbows give the film a quasi-fairytale, almost surreal feel. El Señor has raised his daughters in total ignorance of the world outside their community of a dozen or so. But the film is depressingly thin on the women; often it seems more interested in arranging them in arty tableaux than investigating the way that isolation has shaped their personalities and how they see the world. The wafty Terrence Malick-ish voiceover written for Laila doesn’t exactly fill in the psychological gaps.
Continue reading...Showing a health pass or negative PCR test is obligatory if people want to access cultural venues
There are teething troubles on day one of France’s controversial health pass for accessing public places. Outside Montpellier’s main art gallery, the Musée Fabre, a security guard squints at a visitor’s smartphone. “I can’t see your pass,” he says. The visitor tries shielding it from the severe Mediterranean sun: “I don’t see anything either. I can’t even see whether my phone’s unlocked or not.”
From Wednesday, showing either a health pass, or proof of a negative PCR test dated to within 48 hours, is obligatory in France for anyone wishing to access any cultural or leisure facilities with a capacity of more than 50 people. This includes cinemas, art galleries, libraries, museums, sports centres and work-related events. Cafes, restaurants and trains will fall under the measures at the beginning of August.
Continue reading...Prime minister announces referendum on ‘child protection’ three days before Budapest Pride march
Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has announced that his government will hold a nationwide referendum on “child protection”, a euphemism for parts of a recent law widely condemned as discriminatory that bans any portrayal of LGBT people in materials meant for children.
“LGBTQ activists visit kindergartens and schools and conduct sexual education classes. They want to do this here in Hungary as well,” said Orbán in a Facebook video statement placed on Wednesday.
Continue reading...New York officials have told vulnerable people to stay indoors because of sooty air pollution from wildfires in western US states that have drifted across the country. Residents of New York City, 2,000 miles away from the blazes, witnessed a fiery sunrise on Tuesday. The Bootleg fire in Oregon has become so large and hot it is creating its own weather system, causing winds that have further fanned its flames
Continue reading...Swiss court ruling is not the first time plunder of DRC’s mineral wealth has been linked to the killing of Congolese people. Without accountability, it won’t be the last
According to the Swiss federal criminal court last week, the corruption destroying the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where devastating conflicts over minerals used in our electronics have killed more than six million people – is inextricably linked to the UK, Gibraltar and Switzerland.
It was a significant moment exposing corruption that has fuelled not only grinding poverty, famine and unemployment in DRC but also the impunity and violence required to sustain it. Yet, unless there is accountability, it won’t change.
Continue reading...Slow-moving storms such as recent deluge in Germany could become 14 times more frequent by 2100
Catastrophic floods such as those that struck Europe recently could become much more frequent as a result of global heating, researchers say.
High-resolution computer models suggest that slow-moving storms could become 14 times more common over land by the end of the century in a worst-case scenario. The slower a storm moves, the more rain it dumps on a small area and the greater the risk of serious flooding.
Continue reading...Italian government earmarks €5m to help villages get rid of volcanic cinders from erupting volcano
Dozens of Sicilian towns face bankruptcy due to the cost of cleaning up the volcanic ash left by Mount Etna, which has been erupting regularly since February.
The Italian government on Monday allocated €5m to compensate several villages struggling to pay to get rid of the volcanic cinders, the cost of which can reach more than €1m with every eruption.
Continue reading...Fartun Hassan Ahmed bled to death after undergoing female genital mutilation, a practice that 98% of women in the east African country undergo
A 13-year-old girl has died after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia, as activists report a rise in the practice during the pandemic.
Fartun Hassan Ahmed, the daughter of nomadic pastoralists, bled to death after being cut earlier this month in the village of Jeerinle in the state of Galmudug, her mother said.
Continue reading...Analysis: War may be winding down, but with Assad in charge for seven more seven years the country remains splintered
Standing on a podium on Saturday to take an oath of office, Bashar al-Assad declared himself the only man who could rebuild Syria.
His first foreign guest, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, seemed to enhance his claim, endorsing the president’s win in a May poll described by Britain and Europe as “neither free nor fair” and laying a marker to help get the job started.
Continue reading...Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci got into a heated discussion with Republican Senator Rand Paul during a Senate hearing on the coronavirus. Paul pressed Fauci on previous comments made to the committee about funding for a lab in Wuhan, China, 'You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you're saying that's not 'gain of function'?' To which Fauci replied, 'Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And, I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about'
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Many were surprised by the strong stance that Fox News host Sean Hannity took on Covid-19 Monday night when he told viewers, “I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination.”
Related: Fox News host Sean Hannity urges viewers to ‘take Covid seriously’
Continue reading...Tokyo 2020 could make late call on whether Games begin; infections in France grow at unprecedented rate due to Delta variant
Turkey’s daily coronavirus cases rose to 8,780 on Tuesday, nearly double a low water mark touched earlier this month, while 46 new related deaths were logged, according to the government tally.
Infections remain well down from a wave in April-May when new cases peaked above 60,000. They fell to 4,418 on July 4 in the wake of a stringent lockdown that ended in mid-May. The government lifted most of the last restrictions this month.
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More than 80 major wildfires currently burning in western states as Bootleg fire reaches 537 sq miles
Oregon’s explosive summer of wildfire is threatening to escalate further, with thunderstorms and lightning set to spur more of the blazes that have torn through much of a parched, dangerously hot US west this year.
Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire
Continue reading...Locals fear for their health and property as smoke from raging forest fires shrouds an entire region of eastern Russia
Every morning and evening for the last few days, shifts of young villagers have headed out into the taiga forest around Teryut with a seemingly impossible task: to quell the raging fires that have burned closer and closer for a month, shrouding this remote eastern Siberian village in an acrid haze.
So far, little has worked. Amid the worst wildfire season in memory, locals have vowed to defend their village to the last, sending away small children for their protection from the smog while they stay on to fight back the flames.
Continue reading...The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hailed “the best day ever” after completing his pioneering foray into space on Tuesday with three crewmates, among them his brother Mark.
Related: Why is Bezos flying to space? Because billionaires think Earth is a sinking ship | Hamilton Nolan
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