Irish singer’s brother speaks of shock at ‘hideous’ figure which ‘looked nothing like her’
Dublin’s wax museum is withdrawing a figure of Sinéad O’Connor amid criticism from her family and members of the public that it looked “nothing like her”.
Many reacted with shock when the waxwork figure was unveiled on Thursday.
Continue reading...Märtha Louise is not allowed to use her title commercially after renouncing her royal duties two years ago
A letter has claimed that the Norwegian princess Märtha Louise was more deeply involved with a gin launched to mark her forthcoming wedding than previously stated, amid growing questions over the use of her name on the bottle.
The royal, who will marry the American businessman Durek Verrett in a four-day fjord-side wedding in Geiranger, Norway, next month, is not permitted to use her princess title in commercial contexts.
Continue reading...High-speed rail services have been disrupted, hours before Olympics opening ceremony, by ‘acts of malice’
Eurostar passengers travelling from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone trips if possible, with trains delayed and cancelled after arson attacks took place on high-speed rail lines hours before the start of the Olympics.
Most services were leaving St Pancras International station on time but journeys were expected to be prolonged by at least an hour in France. Two afternoon departures have been cancelled.
Continue reading...‘Massive’ coordinated attacks on TGV bring severe disruption to France’s busiest rail lines
France’s high-speed rail network has been hit by coordinated “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have brought major disruption to many of the country’s busiest rail lines hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
The state-owned railway operator, SNCF, said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with the country’s west, north and east and that traffic would be severely disrupted across the country during the weekend.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As Paris gears up for the Games, the excitement is palpable, but concern about performance-enhancing drugs threatens the reputation of one of its sports
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Good morning.
The Olympics is here! Get ready for some truly awe-inspiring displays of athleticism. But there is also a scandal hovering over the Games in Paris that threatens to move focus away from the athletes.
Health | Wes Streeting has called England’s healthcare watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), “not fit for purpose” after an interim report found significant failings were hampering its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.
Budget | Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a £20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget.
Israel-Gaza war | Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pressed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding “I will not be silent.”
Assisted dying | Keir Starmer is under pressure to fulfil a promise to allow a parliamentary vote on legalising assisted dying, as a bill is to be introduced into the House of Lords on Friday.
Police | A teenager who was kicked in the face by an armed police officer while lying prone on the ground is “traumatised” and receiving hospital treatment after the “barbaric” assault, his solicitor has said. Akhmed Yakoob said 19-year-old Muhammed Fahir was a victim of “police brutality” after footage showed an officer stamping on his head during an arrest at Manchester airport on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s foreign minister calls on Hong Kong to prevent Russia from using region to circumvent sanctions; drone debris lands in Romania. What we know on day 884
The Pentagon has found $2bn worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2bn, a US government report revealed on Thursday. In 2023, the Pentagon said staff used “replacement value” instead of “depreciated value” to tabulate the billions in materials sent to Ukraine. The $6.2bn error created a path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on Hong Kong to prevent Russia and Russian businesses from using the region to circumvent sanctions. Kuleba met with Hong Kong leader John Lee as part of a visit to China. He called on the administration to prevent Russia from using Hong Kong to circumvent restrictions resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a statement from the Ukrainian foreign affairs ministry. “These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s potential to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” the statement said.
A court in Moscow on Thursday ordered the head of a defense ministry’s construction division to be detained for two months on suspicion of abuse of power, Russian news agencies reported, the latest in a series of arrests of high-ranking ministry officials this year. Andrei Belkov heads the Military Construction Company, which builds bases, hospitals, schools and other facilities for the military, according to its website.
Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off the coast of Alaska, in a new show of expanding military cooperation that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday raises concerns. The flights Wednesday were not seen as a threat but it was the first time that Chinese bomber aircraft have flown within the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone. And it was the first time Chinese and Russian aircraft have taken off from the same base in northeast Russia.
The Turkish navy intercepted a marine drone in the Black Sea off Istanbul, authorities said, with media reporting that it contained explosives and might be Ukrainian. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of mines suspected of having floated down from the conflict zone have been spotted off the Turkish coast. The public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.
Debris from what is believed to be a Russian drone landed in a rural area of Romania, the country’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, in the latest apparent incident of drone wreckage from the war in neighbouring Ukraine falling on to the Nato member’s soil.
The Netherlands and Denmark are to deliver 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine “before the end of summer”, the Dutch defence minister announced Wednesday, saying Kyiv “urgently” needed more military support. The two countries bought the German-made tanks last year for 165mn euros ($186m) before sending them for refurbishment.
With Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
Continue reading...Sounkamba Sylla reportedly reaches compromise after France’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her
A French sprinter is expected to swap her headscarf for a cap in order to participate in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, in a compromise reportedly struck after the country’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her from the event.
Earlier this week Sounkamba Sylla, a Muslim member of France’s 400m women’s and mixed relay teams, said she would not be able to take part in Friday’s ceremony because she wears a hijab.
Continue reading...French president seeks to reassure guests, including Elon Musk, as data show industry morale slumped in July
Barely six weeks after he dissolved parliament and plunged France into political chaos, Emmanuel Macron has sought to reassure 40 of the world’s most influential businessmen that his country remains a good investment.
Guests at a sit-down lunch at the Élysée palace on Thursday included Tesla’s Elon Musk, Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, YouTube’s Neal Mohan and Eli Lilly’s David Ricks.
Continue reading...Artefacts sent by farmer, who made the ‘absolutely mad’ discovery while cutting silage
When the national museum of Ireland received two 4,000-year-old axe heads, “thoughtfully” wrapped in foam inside a porridge box, from an anonymous source last month, it put out an appeal. The objects were “significant” and “exciting”, it said, but experts needed to know more about where exactly they had been found.
Now they have their answer: a farmer from County Westmeath has come forward as the mysterious sender, saying he made the “absolutely mad” discovery while using a metal detector on his land.
Continue reading...People living next to Santiago Bernabéu venue say gigs – including those by Taylor Swift – are ruining their lives and are taking action
When Delphine de Pontevès opens the window of her first-floor flat in Madrid a little before 10pm on a Tuesday night, more spills into the living room than the unforgivingly hot night air.
The voices and shouts of the crowds below give way to cheers, then to bass-heavy beats and music that will last until midnight and further stretch the patience of those who, like De Pontevès, live next door to the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
Continue reading...Service at Germany’s busiest airport gradually resuming as ‘oil kills’ protests spread from Europe to North America
Climate activists have disrupted flights at Frankfurt and Oslo airports on the second day of coordinated “oil kills” protests across Europe and North America.
Demanding an end to fossil fuels by 2030, supporters of Letzte Generation (Last Generation) briefly suspended flights at Frankfurt airport on Thursday morning. The activists said they had cut a wire fence, entered on bicycles and skateboards and glued themselves to the tarmac.
Continue reading...Watchdog raises concerns about Home Office decision in annual report about incident last summer
An Albanian man who was being held in a secure psychiatric unit was taken directly from his hospital bed to a Home Office deportation flight, a report has revealed.
The Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB), a watchdog for prisons and immigration removal centres, has raised concerns about the incident last summer in its annual report published on Thursday.
Continue reading...Ten activists arrested at Heathrow, over 30 flights cancelled at Cologne-Bonn, and planes delayed or diverted
Climate activists acting under the banner “oil kills” have glued themselves to the tarmac and grounded flights across Europe as holidaymakers attempt to make summer getaways.
In a wave of protests at airports from Oslo to Barcelona, activists disrupted flights and demanded that rich and polluting countries phase out fossil fuels by 2030. The protests, which the activists said had led to several arrests, came a day after climate scientists logged the world’s hottest day on record.
Continue reading...About 1,000 holidaymakers forced to leave Baia di Campi, near Vieste on Gargano peninsula in southern Italy
About 1,000 tourists have been evacuated from a camping village in the southern Italian region of Puglia after a vast wildfire broke out in an area of forest close to the complex.
The fire started early on Wednesday morning around the bay of San Felice, a wooded-coastal area near the town of Vieste in Gargano, a peninsula in the northern part of Puglia.
Continue reading...Cargo of vessel capsized near Sweden in 19th century also includes mineral water, say Polish divers
Divers have discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the Swedish coast “loaded to the brim” with champagne.
The group, from Poland, were diving in the Baltic 20 nautical miles (37km) south of the island of Öland when they found the boat, believed to be a merchant vessel, by chance last week.
Continue reading...EU officials ask Giorgia Meloni to guarantee independence and funding of public broadcaster amid growing worries
The European Commission has raised the alarm about the independence of Italy’s public service media and Rome’s failure to reform the country’s strict defamation law, which is widely seen as silencing government critics.
In a report issued on Wednesday EU officials identified “persisting challenges related to the effectiveness of [the] governance and funding” of Italy’s public service media, urging Giorgia Meloni’s government to guarantee both its independence and its funding.
Continue reading...Strong results follow drop in European airline stocks this week after Ryanair reported profit plunge
The budget airline easyJet is predicting a record-breaking summer of travel after profits jumped 16% in its most recent quarter of trading.
The bumper figures come only two days after the rival no-frills carrier Ryanair reported a plunge in earnings and a poor outlook for the holiday getaway season, pushing down many European airline stocks.
Continue reading...Group of finance ministers call for sanctions to be ratcheted up amid signs Moscow’s war machine is weakening
Vladimir Putin is “peddling lies” about the strength of the Russian economy that must be refuted, finance ministers from eight EU member states have said, with growing signs of deterioration in the face of biting sanctions.
They say there are signs that the economy is being “sovietised” with many hallmarks of the former USSR including expropriation of private assets to fund public spending, a “total disregard to the social and economic wellbeing of the population” and reorientation of the economy towards its war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...US rapper will conclude torch’s relay through Saint-Denis and Olympic Village to mark start of 33rd Games
Snoop Dogg will carry the Olympic torch through the final stages when it passes through Paris before the opening ceremony on Friday.
The US rapper will be hoping he won’t Drop It Like It’s Hot when he holds the torch in Saint-Denis to mark the start of the 33rd Games.
Continue reading...France’s president says delay is to avoid disorder, after leftist coalition announces Lucie Castet as its pick to become PM
Emmanuel Macron has said he will maintain the country’s centrist caretaker government until the end of the Olympic Games in mid-August to avoid disorder, dismissing an effort by a leftwing alliance to name a prime minister.
His announcement in a TV interview came shortly after the leftist coalition that won the most votes in this month’s parliamentary elections selected the little-known civil servant Lucie Castets as its choice for prime minister.
Continue reading...