Remains of Linda Mary Beardy, 33, spotted by staff at Canadian garbage dump amid crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women
Police in Canada say the body of another Indigenous woman has been found at a Winnipeg landfill, in the latest grim episode of the country’s crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
The body of Linda Mary Beardy, a 33-year-old mother from Lake St Martin First Nation, was spotted on Monday by staff at the Brady landfill.
Continue reading...Foreign Office figures show aid to Africa fell to £1.1bn in 2022, compared with £3.7bn of budget spent on refugees in UK
The UK spent more than three times its overseas aid budget on housing refugees in Britain than on helping to alleviate poverty in Africa in 2022, figures from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show.
The official provisional figures for 2022 show that spending on refugees increased from £597m in 2020 to £1bn in 2021 and reached £3.7bn in 2022. No other major country in the world is cutting its mainstream aid budget to cover the cost of housing refugees in this way, said the aid campaign group Bond.
Continue reading...Metal used for west African artworks was acquired from manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the slave trade
Scientists have discovered that some of the Benin bronzes were made with brass mined thousands of miles away in the German Rhineland.
The Edo people in the Kingdom of Benin, modern Nigeria, created their extraordinary sculptures with melted down brass manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the transatlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Continue reading...Rudolph Erasmus praised for ‘great airmanship’ after discovery of deadly cobra in cockpit of private plane
A South African pilot was forced to make an emergency landing after a 5ft deadly cobra slithered past his side and curled up under his seat.
Rudolph Erasmus was flying four passengers in a private plane at 11,000ft when he said he felt a “cold sensation” on his hip. Thinking that his water bottle might have been leaking, Erasmus looked down instead at the sight of a highly venomous snake disappearing underneath him.
Continue reading...Introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, game has sold millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages
Klaus Teuber, the creator of the hugely popular Catan board game, has died after a brief illness, according to a family statement. He was 70.
The board game, originally called The Settlers of Catan when introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, has sold tens of millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages. It has spawned dozens of spinoffs and new editions, including electronic versions, not to mention products related to the game.
Continue reading...Raise brings Galen Weston of Loblaw Companies’ pay to $11.79m last year amid outcry for raising prices during record inflation
The billionaire head of Canada’s largest grocery chain has been given a C$1.2m (US$890,000) raise, in a move likely to prompt controversy as grocery executives have faced sharp criticism for raising their prices amid record inflation.
The raise for Galen Weston, chairman and president of grocer Loblaw Companies, brought his total pay last year to C$11.79m. Details of the deal were first reported by the Globe and Mail.
Continue reading...Young people had been sleeping rough across city after being rejected as minors by French authorities
More than 180 homeless young migrants have taken over a disused nursery school building in the west of Paris to protest against the inhumane treatment of unaccompanied minors arriving in France from Africa.
Backed by three French charities, the young people who had been sleeping rough across Paris for months arrived overnight at the old school building, which has no running water or electricity, and slept under blankets.
Continue reading...Trip is first time Ukrainian president and first lady have travelled abroad together since Russia invaded
Military honours, tributes and praise welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, to Poland in a rare wartime foray out of Ukraine for the country’s president.
While Zelenskiy has also travelled to the US, Britain, France and Belgium, the trip to Poland stood out because it was announced in advance and undertaken without the secrecy of past foreign trips.
Continue reading...President Lula deplores ‘act of hate and cowardice’ as police arrest 25-year-old man after killings in southern state of Santa Catarina
Four children have been killed and at least five others injured after a 25-year-old man armed with a small axe attacked a pre-school in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina.
A man with a hatchet jumped over a wall and invaded a daycare center on Wednesday in Brazil, killing four children and wounding at least five others, authorities said.
Continue reading...Operator investigated for possible trickery and causing involuntary injuries over pollution levels within network
Prosecutors in Paris have opened a criminal investigation into allegations that pollution in the capital’s Métro system is putting travellers’ lives at risk.
The operator of the Métro, the RATP, is being investigated for possible trickery and causing involuntary injuries after it was claimed it had deliberately underreported pollution levels and failed to inform passengers about the dangers.
Continue reading...Tsai Ing-wen to meet the US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, which China has called a ‘provocation’
Pro- and anti-Taiwan protesters gathered at Los Angeles airport for the arrival of Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, before a meeting scheduled for Wednesday with the US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
Protesters also crowded outside Tsai’s LA hotel on Tuesday evening, banging drums, chanting and holding Taiwanese flags and photos of the president, who shook hands with supporters as she entered. A smaller, pro-Beijing group gathered nearby on the pavement, separated by a police line, at times chanting “One China”.
Continue reading...Former New Zealand PM calls for politics to be opened up for all in emotional address to parliament
“You can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother, or not, an ex-Mormon, or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger – you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here – you can lead.”
Jacinda Ardern has left New Zealand’s parliament with a highly personal, often emotional speech, calling for an opening up of politics to those who may not see themselves as typical leaders.
Continue reading...Arrests follow discovery four years ago of woman’s headless body at Hindu temple in Guwahati
Indian police have arrested five men accused of conducting a human sacrifice, nearly four years after the discovery of a woman’s headless body at a Hindu temple left officers baffled.
Shanti Shaw, 64, was killed and decapitated with a machete in 2019 after visiting the temple in Guwahati, a city in India’s remote north-east.
Continue reading...New law bans people from taking leavened food made from grain into medical centres during Jewish holiday
Passover celebrations in Israel this year are once again being overshadowed by a row over the consumption of leavened food such as bread in public buildings, in a symbolic fight about the role of religion in the state.
Last week, the Knesset passed the “chametz law”, which bans people from taking leavened food made from grain into hospitals during Passover. The law, sponsored by an ultra-Orthodox party, is in accordance with traditional Jewish teachings stipulating that observant Jews cannot eat chametz or have it in their homes during the week-long holiday.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Russia-Ukraine war coverage here
You may have noticed on Monday that we are testing a new feature across some of the Guardian’s live blogs, including the Ukraine live blog, which allows you to contact us directly. This is for people who want to message the live blogger directly, and they are not public comments.
If you have something you’ve seen you think we’ve missed, or you have questions or comments about the war or our coverage, or you have spotted one of my regular typos, please do drop me a line.
Continue reading...Police raid triggers West Bank clashes, cross-border strikes in Gaza Strip and fears of escalation
At least 14 Palestinians have been injured and hundreds arrested in an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, triggering clashes in the West Bank, cross-border strikes in the Gaza Strip and fears of wider escalation over the holiday period.
The violence in the early hours of Wednesday – during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday – comes after a year of spiralling bloodshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also carries echoes of 2021, when clashes at Jerusalem’s holiest site helped start an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of Gaza.
Continue reading...Risk of unrest rises amid fourth dry year, poor grain harvest, weak economy and likely food subsidy cuts
Tunisia has introduced water rationing as the country suffers its fourth year of severe drought.
The state water distribution company, Sonede, has already begun cutting mains water supplies every night between 9pm and 4am. The agriculture ministry has now banned the use of water for irrigation, watering green spaces and other public areas, and for washing cars.
Continue reading...Opponents say memoir The Courage to be Free, published in February, violates law governor signed last year
Democrats in Florida are attempting to use a state law that censors books in public schools against the governor who signed it, Ron DeSantis, by asking schools to review or ban the Republican governor’s own book, The Courage to be Free.
“The very trap he set for others is the one that he set for himself,” Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic minority leader in the Florida state house, told the Daily Beast.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on Trump’s arraignment here.
After listing off a number of grievances, attacking those involved in the multiple investigations and criminal cases against him, and rambling a number of of-repeated falsehoods about the 2020 elections, he walked off stage.
The speech was in many ways a standard performance, but shorter.
Continue reading...French leader sees Beijing as possible ‘gamechanger’ and will also discuss European trade on three-day visit
Emmanuel Macron has arrived in China for a three-day state visit during which he hopes to dissuade Xi Jinping from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while also developing European trade ties with Beijing.
Shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital, Macron said he wanted to push back against the idea that there was an “inescapable spiral of mounting tensions” between China and the west.
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