The pair’s split has been the subject of fevered press scrutiny – and claims of Bill’s links to Jeffrey Epstein has fed the frenzy
The announcement that Bill and Melinda Gates were to divorce was amicable enough, suggesting a smooth split between the famous couple who turned a billion-dollar software fortune into a driving force for global philanthropy.
Related: Bill Gates ‘left Microsoft board amid inquiry into relationship with employee’
Continue reading...A year ago, Christopher Martin took an allegedly counterfeit bill. The police were called, and shortly after, Floyd would be dead
Christopher Martin lived above a bricked grocery store in south Minneapolis, with a maroon awning and bold red signage that reads Cup Foods. So when a cashier’s position came up last year, he took it without thinking.
He quickly learned the regulars’ orders by heart, their specific tobacco preferences, their favored snacks. The job was more than just a paycheck. “A family, community base,” he remembered. “A lot of jokes and laughs.”
Continue reading...Union says more than one in four of the country’s teachers have been suspended days before start of new school year
More than 125,000 school teachers in Myanmar have been suspended for joining a civil disobedience movement to oppose the military coup that overthrew the country’s elected government in February, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.
The suspensions have come days before the start of a new school year, which some teachers and parents are boycotting as part of a campaign that has paralysed the country since the military seized power and cut short a decade of democratic reforms.
Continue reading...The trial of defrocked priest Richard Daschbach, charged with sexual abuse of 14 girls, is dividing the small, deeply Catholic country
Lita grew up in a poor family in a hamlet surrounded by the spectacular mountains of Oecusse in Timor-Leste. When she was 11 years old she went to live in Topu Honis shelter home, in the mountainous, forest-encircled village of Kutet.
The shelter was run by Richard Daschbach, a now-defrocked 84-year-old US priest who founded the facility in 1992.
Continue reading...Germany to bar visitors from UK over Covid variants of concern; sewage samples being tested across England to monitor Covid variants
Australia has now administered more than 3.5m doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, with a further 89,000 jabs delivered around the country.
New South Wales delivered 12,485 doses in the past 24 hours, becoming another one-day record for the state. Around 5000 of them were administered at its Olympic Park mass vaccination hub alone, AAP reports.
Malaysia has reported a further 6,320 coronavirus cases amid a recent surge in infections, as well as 50 new deaths. Saturday’s figures compare with 4,140 cases and 44 deaths a week today.
The nation reported a record high of 6,806 new cases on Thursday when it also saw its highest daily toll of 59 deaths. Taking the total number of cases since the onset of the pandemic to 505,115, Reuters reports.
CNN has dropped former Republican US senator Rick Santorum as a senior political commentator after racist remarks he made about Native Americans at an event in April.
News of Santorum’s termination was first reported by HuffPost. A CNN spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that the network has parted ways with Santorum. No further comment on the firing was provided, though an anonymous CNN executive told HuffPost that “leadership wasn’t particularly satisfied with that appearance. None of the anchors wanted to book him.”
Continue reading...Thousands of people head towards border with Rwanda as lava approaches outskirts of city
A river of flaming lava that poured out of the erupting Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has reached the suburbs of Goma, an eastern city of nearly 2 million people.
Officials said on Sunday that the molten stream had reached the airport on the outskirts of the city, but witnesses said the flow appeared to have halted later in the morning.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Shoei Kisen tell court container ship was wrongly allowed to enter waterway amid bad weather
The owner of a container ship that blocked the Suez canal in March says the canal authority was at fault over its grounding as it disputes the vessel’s detention and a compensation claim, a lawyer representing the owner said on Saturday.
The Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, became jammed across the canal in high winds on 23 March, and remained grounded for six days, blocking traffic in both directions and disrupting global trade.
Continue reading...A Public Health England study has revealed the vaccines can be up to 88% effective after a second dose
Both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs are highly effective at protecting people from the strain of the Covid-19 virus first found in India, a study by Public Health England (PHE) has found.
The analysis, carried out between 5 April and 16 May, found the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain. For its part, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective, compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period.
Continue reading...Thousands of people have gathered in central London in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Organisers estimated that more than 180,000 joined the protest on Saturday, and that it could be one of the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in British history. The protest went ahead despite the announcement of a ceasefire on Friday morning after a 11-day Israeli bombing campaign, with organisers saying they wanted to demand that the UK government implement sanctions on Israel
Continue reading...A ceasefire is finally in force, but traumatised families have little hope as they recall collapsing buildings and deaths of loved ones
As they emerge from hiding, people living in Gaza City have had to adapt their memories. So deformed is this small place on the coast that a mental map of its roads and landmarks from two weeks ago is largely useless today. Shortcuts to avoid traffic may no longer work, as craters dot back streets and rubble blocks roads. Locally famous high-rises no longer exist.
Eleven days of bombardment have buckled the city. Air attacks shook the ground so violently that some bomb sites appear as if buildings have been pulled into the earth rather than hit from above.
Continue reading...Experts warn of a ‘huge ecological disaster’ after blaze in the Geraneia mountains
Hundreds of firefighters battled Greece’s first major forest fire of the summer on Saturday, as experts warned of a “huge ecological disaster” in a nature conservation area near Athens.
The fire, which broke out late on Wednesday in the Geraneia mountains 55 miles (90km) west of the capital, is “one of the biggest in the past 20 to 30 years, and has come early in the season”, fire chief Stefanos Kolokouris told ANT1 television.
Continue reading...Image believed to be of 35-year-old who fled father Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 2018
Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai, whose plight has captivated the world since a daring attempt at escaping her father across the Indian Ocean, appears to have been photographed in public for the first time in years.
In a picture posted to Instagram two days ago by both former Royal Navy member Sioned Taylor and another user, Princess Latifa is seated with two women at a cafe table in what Taylor identified as Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates.
Continue reading...Two years after Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, died after a confrontation with white police officers in May 2019, the Louisiana police department released footage of the incident.
Louisiana state police had refused to publicly release footage from the incident, which they claimed culminated in Greene dying from crashing into a tree and injuring his head.
Continue reading...The killing of Floyd by a white officer reflected a common history of violence against Black people that united protesters in a renewed global movement
George Floyd’s murder felt like everything was the same and nothing was the same, said Miski Noor, an activist in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a white police officer a year ago on 25 May.
“How many times have we seen Black death go viral?” asked Noor, the co-founder of Black Visions, which advocates for abolition, an approach to public safety that does not involve the police.
Continue reading...Children’s charity faces claims it failed vulnerable children and misled donors after shutting down activities in the country
One of the world’s largest children’s rights charities has admitted it “made a number of mistakes” when it left Sri Lanka abruptly last year, amid accusations it had misled the public and donors and failed 20,000 vulnerable children in the country.
Former employees and provincial governors who spoke to the Guardian described Plan International’s exit as “irresponsible”, “cynical and indefensible”.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru
Continue reading...More than 700 people have died in the Mediterranean this year. But Sea-Eye, a German charity, is fighting hard to save lives
Amani clutches her son, Mohammed, as she is pulled from an unstable wooden boat in the Mediterranean. “Please help. My baby is soaked in water and freezing,” says the 23-year-old Syrian refugee.
It’s shortly before 2am, last Monday and about 80 miles (130km) from the Libyan coast a group of maritime emergency responders from the Sea-Eye 4 are on patrol.
Continue reading...Analysis: reported death of Boko Haram’s leader will increase the influence of Islamic State affiliates
For more than a decade, Nigerian security services and their international supporters have struggled to end Boko Haram’s brutal reign of terror over north-eastern Nigeria.
But few observers of the conflict are celebrating – even though it appears increasingly likely that Abubakar Shekau, the Islamist extremist movement’s notoriously violent leader, is dead, its strongholds overrun and remaining fighters scattered.
Continue reading...World leaders welcome ceasefire but Hamas and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu remain belligerent
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have begun returning to their homes to inspect the devastation from 11 days of Israeli airstrikes in its war with Hamas.
Gaza City, on the Mediterranean coast, had been warped by the intense attacks, with gaping holes in the skyline from where high-rise buildings had collapsed, their remains sprawling into the street. Cars mounted pavements to avoid craters.
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