
Plans involve dredging and expanding docks to allow larger cruise ships to visit with up to 200,000 passengers annually
Janavi Kramer had just enjoyed a swim with friends and was sitting on a bench taking in a wonderful Cornish view – headlands plunging into deep water, bobbing boats, a bustling harbour town.
“We’re lucky to have this space,” said Kramer, who is an artist and scientific illustrator. “We use it for work, recreation and pleasure and it’s so scary to think that this could all be harmed. I worry about what we may be living with soon and what we’ll be leaving for future generations.”
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper’s maternity reforms must change a system that too often fails women when they’re at their most vulnerable
On the third day of being in labour with my first child, I entered a new state of being. It was time to dig deep. This is what I had learned in all the childbirth classes. As long as I remained calm, breathed as instructed, moaned through the pain, things would happen as they were meant to. My body knew what it was doing. Only, it didn’t.
On the fourth day, I started to beg. This wasn’t right. Despite contraction after relentless contraction, I wasn’t dilating. I hadn’t slept, I couldn’t even sit down. I needed help. And still, they waited. For what, I never understood.
Natalie Morris is the author of Mixed/Other: Explorations of Multiraciality in Modern Britain
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Continue reading...As Stand By Me is re-released for its 40th anniversary, we look at the late actor’s most intense, enduring roles – from a goofball boffin to a narcoleptic hustler
Issue-of-the-week TV movie about elder abuse, with Tuesday Weld as a harried mum taking out her frustrations on her own ageing mother. Phoenix slaps on the hair gel as the essentially decent son who blasts his music too loud, lets his rowdy if unusually spiffy pals put their feet on the furniture and resents the new house guest: “Grandma is really getting on my nerves!”
Continue reading...A man who prized blunt speaking has been selectively eulogised. There’s a balance between decency and honesty: I’m sad he caused such harm
As tributes poured in for Rod Liddle, the Sunday Times and Sun columnist who has died at the age of 66, they were markedly coy and sanitised. Paradoxically, those were the exact deficiencies obituaries praised Liddle for avoiding – they said he shot from the hip and ruffled feathers, remorselessly attacked the liberal establishment and was ebullient. Michael Gove called him “special and brave”. But brave in the face of what? Attacked the liberal establishment how?
This delicacy was particularly noticeable in a segment on Radio 4’s Today programme, of which Liddle was editor in the 90s, between Justin Webb and Amol Rajan. “If there was a golden thread that connected the person you saw back then with the person of a few weeks ago,” Webb said, “it was a distrust of authority.” But Liddle’s targets as a columnist were not the authorities. Often they were Muslims and immigrants, transgender people and chronic illness sufferers, African-Caribbean men from Harlesden. He did not attack the establishment, he attacked the marginalised, constantly.
Continue reading...Their parents were Womack & Womack, Uncle Bobby was a superstar and so was their grandfather, Sam Cooke. The trio explain how, after driving Ubers and being told soul was dead, they joined the family business
Backstage at a London festival, on a Sunday afternoon, the Womack Sisters are assembling themselves on a sofa, still clad in the clothes they were wearing on stage a few minutes ago. They look very stylish in their black dresses, tights and high heels, but they are not, it has to be said, dressed appropriately for the weather, which is sweltering. “You don’t feel anything on stage,” says Zeimani with a shrug. “You just feel amazing, like you’re floating.”
“And we’re committed,” nods her sister BG. “You know, we were taught by professionals.”
Continue reading...From mind-boggling murder investigations to decade-long scams, there’s no shortage of documentaries about real-life awfulness. We list the most incredible
Since the true-crime explosion a decade ago – kickstarted by Netflix’s Making a Murderer – audiences have been fed a steady small-screen diet of cold-case killings, catfishing scams and creepy cults. And, after years of varying results, Netflix’s latest show, A Toxic Love Story – which recounts how a California couple framed an innocent woman for stalking, intimidation and recruiting men from Craigslist to rape her ex’s new wife – is being billed as a return to true-crime form. But when it comes to similar shows worth your viewing time, what else is up there?
Here’s a selection of the genre’s 25 standout shows and where to watch them – which, let’s face it, is mainly Netflix. Let the boggle-eyed bingeing begin.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Academics call for inquiry, saying university must be held accountable for ‘grotesque racism unleashed’
The University of Cambridge’s leaders deserve blame for the “grotesque racism unleashed” by Jason Arday’s appointment as professor, according to academics calling for the university to hold an independent inquiry.
The Guardian understands that senior dons at Cambridge are circulating a joint letter calling for an inquiry into the processes and circumstances around Arday being given the position, with many suggesting the university wanted a “quick fix” to improve the diversity of its staff.
Continue reading...Judge issues temporary pause while he considers Trump’s request to revise his libel lawsuit against BBC
A federal judge has temporarily halted an order requiring Donald Trump to turn over detailed financial information about his business empire to the BBC as part of an ongoing libel lawsuit.
US district judge Roy Altman issued the temporary pause while he considers Trump’s request to revise and narrow parts of his lawsuit against the BBC over a 2024 documentary that aired in the UK.
Continue reading...Westminster council has recommended banning ‘vertical drinking’ or ordering at the bar in new draft licensing policy
No 10 has vowed to confiscate powers from local councils which try to restrict customers from standing up while drinking in pubs or ordering at the bar.
It comes after the Guardian revealed on Thursday that Westminster council in central London recommended not allowing “vertical drinking” or ordering at the bar in its new draft licensing policy.
Continue reading...Researchers say breakthrough offers hope for new medicines but also raises urgent biosecurity questions
Scientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new medicines but also concerns over how to ensure the technology remains safe.
The viruses are specific kinds known as bacteriophages, which only infect bacteria and are used around the world to treat patients with persistent infections. In lab tests, a cocktail of the AI-designed viruses killed E coli bugs that were resistant to natural bacteriophages.
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