Armada 1588: Shipwreck and Survival tells turbulent tale on bucolic stretch of Irish coast
Streedagh beach was the setting for young love in the TV drama Normal People, but its latest screen depiction reveals a dark history of plunder and slaughter on the golden sand.
Instead of romance among the dunes, viewers encounter drownings, stabbings and hangings on this bucolic stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast. And unlike the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, it’s all true.
Continue reading...At least 50 people have been killed after the river Kuma in Kyushu burst its banks, triggering floods and mudslides
Rescue workers were combing through the wreckage of houses hit by flooding and landslides in Japan after extreme weather left more than 50 people dead or missing on the southern island of Kyushu.
The Kyodo news agency said 40 people had died in the floods and at least 11 were missing. Among the dead were 14 residents of an elderly care home in Kuma village, Kumamoto, where the nearby Kuma river flooded. More torrential rain is forecast for coming days.
Continue reading...Company says it has ‘paused’ its relationship with the social media company as part of global movement against hate speech
New Zealand’s largest newspaper group has temporarily quit Facebook in a bold “experiment” aligning itself with a global boycott of the social media site, which has been condemned for failing to crack down on escalating hate speech.
Stuff is the biggest news media website in New Zealand and owns dozens of newspapers around the country, employing more than 400 journalists.
Continue reading...Pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier believed to be caused by plant that makes the ice darker, causing it to melt faster
Scientists in Italy are investigating the mysterious appearance of pink glacial ice in the Alps, caused by algae that accelerate the effects of climate change.
There is debate about where the algae come from, but Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council said the pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier is likely caused by the same plant found in Greenland.
Continue reading...Bayan Nur has forbidden the hunting and eating of animals that could carry plague and asked the public to report fever with no clear causes
Authorities in a city in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia have issued a warning after a hospital reported a case of suspected bubonic plague.
The health committee of the city of Bayan Nur issued the third-level alert, the second lowest in a four-level system, on Sunday.
Continue reading...Country says suspected attack could slow production of advanced centrifuges, which Israel and US see as threat
Iran has admitted an incident at one of its main nuclear sites last week caused major damage and could slow down the country’s production of advanced centrifuges, technology Israel and the US see as a threat, intensifying suspicions there may have been a deliberate attack on the facility.
Newly released satellite imagery showed the damage from what Iranian authorities attributed to a fire at the Natanz nuclear facility was far more extensive that previously disclosed.
Continue reading...Mexico deaths surpass France’s toll; new US cases dip slightly to 45,300; Iran makes masks compulsory
Richard Luscombe has the latest Covid-19 data from Florida:
Worrying figures just in from Florida: the state recorded 10,059 new cases of Covid-19 overnight, bringing the overall total past 200,000. Florida’s death toll increased by 29 to 3,731, and the number of hospitalisations statewide rose by a further 160, to 15,595 since the pandemic began. The statistics show that in three of the five days of July so far, new coronavirus cases are above 10,000.
Related: Trump claims victory as US nears 130,000 coronavirus deaths – live
Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell from Associated Press have been reporting on Iran today as the government instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a mask in recent days, urging both public officials and the Islamic Republic’s 80 million people to wear them to stop the virus’s spread.
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Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has appeared on CBS’s Face The Nation to discuss the Covid-19 outbreak in his city. He says staffing at the city’s hospital is a particular problem.
“If we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly, in about two weeks our hospital system could be in serious, serious trouble,” he says. “... We can always provide additional beds, but we need the people, the nurses and everybody else, the medical professionals to staff those beds. That’s the critical point right now.”
New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press. New Jersey has been one of the worst-hit states in the US during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and he says a national strategy is needed to combat Covid-19.
“This thing is lethal,” he says. “New Jersey’s paid an enormous price. We’ve [had] 13,000 confirmed fatalities from Covid-19. We’re starting to see small spikes in reinfection from folks coming back from places like Myrtle Beach and as well as in Florida, other hotspots.
Continue reading...Display of anger likely to encourage US to believe sanctions are creating tensions
Hardline Iranian MPs heckled the country’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and denounced him as a liar in parliament on Sunday, in a display of division and anger that is likely to encourage Washington to believe that its tough sanctions policy is creating deep tensions.
Zarif was speaking to the newly elected and conservative-dominated parliament for the first time and had to wait for the speaker to restore order as he was accused of selling the country out by negotiating with the US administration over the nuclear deal in 2015. The row, which lasted several minutes, shows how conservatives will use the failure of the nuclear deal to boost the Iranian economy to isolate any reformist candidate in next year’s presidential election.
Continue reading...Government critic found dead with gunshot wounds near Vienna on Saturday
Austrian police have arrested two Russians from Chechnya over the fatal shooting of a Chechen dissident.
A 43-year-old man was found dead with gunshot wounds in Gerasdorf, near Vienna, on Saturday. Police arrested a 47-year-old in Linz, 125 miles (200km) from the capital. A second Russian, 37, also from Chechnya and living in Austria, was detained on Sunday for investigations into the murder of his fellow Russian citizen.
Continue reading...More than 20 armed officers said to have taken part in raid leading to her detention at rural New Hampshire retreat
Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of grooming underage victims for sexual abuse by the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, is scheduled to appear in a New York court this week as fresh details emerge of her arrest in an FBI raid.
More than 20 armed agents and police are reported to have taken part in the early-morning operation on Thursday that led to her being handcuffed at her secluded, rural retreat in New Hampshire and taken into custody.
Continue reading...One person died and one remained in serious condition after a car drove into protesters on a freeway in Seattle.
Summer Taylor, 24, of Seattle, died on Saturday evening at Harborview Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.
Continue reading...Record rainfall triggers landslides in western Kumamoto region, stranding hundreds
Deep floodwaters and the risk of further mudslides have hampered search and rescue operations after heavy rain in southern Japan, including at elderly home facilities where more than a dozen residents died and scores were left stranded.
Helicopters and boats rescued more people from their homes in the Kumamoto region. More than 40,000 troops, the coastguard and fire brigades took part in the operation.
Continue reading...Mexico and Brazil have been hit hard by the pandemic, but so too have countries that were quicker to respond
Coronavirus arrived in Latin America later than in Europe, but it has taken firm hold. A quarter of global confirmed cases are in the region, and researchers have warned the death toll is likely to triple by October to nearly 400,000.
The two countries with the deadliest outbreaks share populist leaders, Brazil’s rightwing Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s leftwing Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Continue reading...As liberal Rafał Trzaskowski gains on rightwing Andrzej Duda, LGBT rights are among issues at stake in Poland and beyond
When Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, goes up against his liberal challenger in a presidential run-off next Sunday, there will be more at stake than just the medium-term political trajectory of the country. The vote is set to be one of the closest and most important European elections in recent years, and the result will resonate well beyond Poland’s borders.
Duda takes on liberal challenger Rafał Trzaskowski in a race that numerous polls suggest is too close to call. The final outcome will be watched closely by European leaders wary of Poland’s recent political direction, and by progressive politicians worldwide seeking lessons about what does or doesn’t work in taking on populists at the ballot box.
Continue reading...Police Federation chair says revellers would not adhere to one-metre-plus rules as pubs opened on Saturday
Drunk people are unable to properly socially distance, the chairman of the Police Federation has said as pubs reopened in England for the first time since lockdown.
John Apter said it was “crystal clear” revellers would not adhere to the one metre plus rule as restrictions were eased on Saturday.
Continue reading...Nestlé is big in York, but the city is fighting the brand’s decision to make life harder for African cocoa farmers
Here’s a quiz question: how many KitKats are produced in the Nestlé factory in York each year? A hundred million? Keep going. The plant makes a billion of the UK’s bestselling chocolate bars annually. That volume is one reason that the company’s shameful decision to end the brand’s Fairtrade certification will have such a devastating effect on cocoa farmers.
I visited some of the Fairtrade-certified cocoa farms in Ivory Coast last year. Seeing the difference that a measure of financial security can make to some of the poorest villages on earth is a lasting lesson in the mechanics of hope.
Continue reading...Years of social progress could be reversed by the virus, amid accusations that politicians have been fatally inept
As coronavirus galloped through Latin America in late April, the mayor of Manaus was in despair. “The outlook is dismal,” Arthur Virgílio admitted as gravediggers in the Amazon’s largest city piled coffins into muddy trenches, Brazil’s death toll hit 5,500, and its president, Jair Bolsonaro, responded with a shrug. “It’s obvious this won’t end well.”
Two months later, Virgílio’s nightmare has come true. Brazil’s death toll has risen to more than 60,000 – the second highest in the world after the United States – with some now predicting it could overtake the US, where 130,000 have died, by the end of July.
Continue reading...Donald Trump describes ‘victory’ over virus as cases rise; Mexico death toll becomes 5th highest; Australia’s toughest lockdown begins
The World Health Organization has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases with 212,326 being recorded in just 24 hours, amid a surge in the United States, Brazil and India.
The WHO’s situation report showed that just under 130,000 of those new cases were in the Americas, including the US, Brazil and Mexico, but the WHO said South-East Asia, including India stood at just under new 28,000 new cases on Saturday.
Continue reading...Two women were struck and injured by a car whose driver sped through a protest-related closure on a freeway in Seattle, authorities said on Saturday.
Related: US under siege from 'far-left fascism', says Trump in Mount Rushmore speech
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