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Complainant J’s mother asked son if former broadcaster ever touched him, high-profile trial told

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The mother of one of Alan Jones’s alleged victims has told the court she apologised to her son for not protecting him after he disclosed the broadcaster had sexually touched him when he was a teenager.

The single mother of four said she was “in shock” when her son, an outstanding schoolboy athlete, admitted that he had initially lied when she asked him if Jones had touched him.

«Одиссея» Кристофера Нолана, безусловно, стала самым обсуждаемым фильмом 2026 года. Режиссера массово хейтили в сети не только из-за сомнительных (если не заведомо провокационных) кастинговых решений, но и из-за того, что Нолан всячески упирал на «историческую достоверность» того, что он снял. 

При этом уровень понимания Гомера у всех сторон дискуссии, как правило, как у хлебушка — например, я своими глазами видел, как в одном таком треде советовали «перед тем, как высказывать свое мнение, прочитать оригинал “Одиссеи“ на латыни». 

Как филолог и многолетний фанат Гомера, я решил рассказать хабровцам, какие «Одиссея» и «Илиада» поставили перед специалистами поразительные научные вопросы, рассказывающие про то, как устроено наше восприятие мира и человека.

Days of rain has caused widespread flooding across the Philippines capital, Manila, and filled the city’s waterways with debris. A massive cleanup operation involving teams of workers and heavy machinery is under way

Ban at Yasukuni shrine comes amid increasing visits by nationalist groups appearing in military style dress

Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni shrine is banning military cosplay on its grounds, after the site become a focal point for displays by ultra-nationalist groups, often dressed in replica army uniforms or military-style dress.

The clothing ban comes in the lead-up to the anniversary this weekend of the defeat of Japan in the second world war, also known as VJ Day, although the shrine has said the ban applies year round.

Taiwan’s statement comes a day after reports that suspected China-linked hackers had carried out a first-of-a-kind breach

Taiwan says it detected AI-assisted cyber-attacks on government agencies that came from overseas last month, a new kind of threat that has been reported as “first-of-a-kind breach”.

The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MDA) said its cybersecurity monitoring units ‌detected the “abnormal attack” targeting government agencies, which began on 20 July. The National Institute of Cyber Security issued a series of warning alerts while it investigated.

Exclusive: Ministers explore diverting male prisoners serving short terms or on remand away from tougher jails

Ministers are examining a possible upgrade of security at men’s category C and women’s prisons to deal with an overcrowding crisis across the England and Wales estate, the Guardian understands.

Officials have explored diverting prisoners on remand or serving short sentences away from category B “reception” prisons such as HMPs Liverpool, Manchester and Pentonville in north London.

The UK is far from equality in academia or society. You don’t need a Cambridge degree to see that Arday’s story is being used to stop any progress in its tracks

In 1987, a college at the University of Cambridge considered offering a prestigious position to a black man in what would be the first appointment of its kind. Not only did the man not have a degree, but he had left school at the age of 13, struggling with dyslexia and – at the time – unable to read or write. That he would later to go on to accumulate 20 honorary doctorates and become a professor of creative writing is only one way, and in my view not the best one, of measuring his talent.

The man was the late, great poet Benjamin Zephaniah. And he had been nothing but transparent about his lack of credentials. In fact it was his background that made him eligible for this fellowship, which was designed to reach out to somebody in the community who didn’t have a degree, to give them the opportunity to have a connection with the university.

Combine these simple Italian baked treats with chilled fruit and thick cream for a playful summer pudding

In his exquisite The French Menu Cookbook, Richard Olney has clear ideas and strong opinions about everything, including dessert. He believed that rich desserts should follow only the simplest of meals, whereas with most menus (meaning all the sophisticated menus in his book), something light, airy and playful is best. His suggestions read like a summer fruit poem: peach melba, apple mousse with peaches, apricot fritters dusted with icing sugar, strawberries in sweetened orange juice, strawberries in beaujolais, strawberry mousse with raspberry puree, iced cherries and fresh almonds. One of his late summer/early autumn menus also suggests fresh figs with raspberry cream (figues à la crème framboise), which is both fun to make (the red puree streaking through the cream for a raspberry ripple) and to eat.

An airy and playful pudding calls for an airy and playful biscuit. What better than lingue di gatto, or cat tongues, so called because of their flat, elongated shape. Made from butter, sugar, flour, and egg whites, lingue di gatto are not complicated to make, but do require a piping bag, which can be mimicked by a zip-lock bag – just remember to scrape the mixture into the bag first, and only snip the end off when you are ready to pipe.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

On this day in 1888, the mechanical mastermind John Logie Baird was born in Dunbartonshire. He was the pioneering inventor who first beamed a recognisable image across a room, giving the world the very first working television. Without his early experiments with biscuit tins, darning needles and bicycle lenses, half of the questions the Thursday quiz has asked would never have been possible. So tune in, turn up your mental brightness, and test your frequency with these 15 questions. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 260

High schoolers join university walkouts in major cities and several smaller locations amid urge to fight against racism

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They came yelling chants that “racists” weren’t “welcome here”, with signs deriding Pauline Hanson’s former fish and chip shop and the One Nation leader herself.

On Thursday, thousands of students across the country put down the textbooks to walk through streets in protest against the rise of Pauline Hanson, joining the protests organised by the National Union of Students.

Rio Tinto makes power supply deal with federal and NSW government to cut emissions and decarbonise, preventing potential closure

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Resources giant Rio Tinto says Australia’s largest aluminium smelter will run entirely on renewable energy by 2033 after it struck a $2.5bn subsidy deal with the federal and New South Wales governments to prevent a potential closure.

The deal – announced by Anthony Albanese and the NSW premier, Chris Minns, at the Tomago smelter near Newcastle on Thursday – is for a 10-year below-market power supply guarantee that begins after the facility’s existing coal-focused electricity contract with AGL ends in December 2028.

Trump’s most prominent spokesperson won regular plaudits from her boss for her unflinching defense of his agenda

Donald Trump’s most prominent spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, is leaving the White House. The US president announced on Wednesday that his press secretary would depart at the end of the month.

Leavitt, who has served in the role since Trump’s returned to power in January 2025, won regular plaudits from her boss for her unflinching defense of his agenda, but faced frequent criticism for amplifying misinformation and curbing press freedom.

Попросите ИИшку придумать открытие конференции, и она предложит десятки вариантов. Свет, музыка, видео, ведущий, интерактив, шоу. Попросите сделать как-нибудь эдак и растак - и варианты наверняка станут смелее. Но количество идей не всегда решает задачу.

Лет десять назад я впервые пришёл на конференцию Инфостарта. Сегодня я работаю здесь директором по маркетингу, а тогда впервые смотрел на сообщество 1Сников - с удивлением и интересом.

За плечами у меня был опыт работы в конгрессно-выставочном бизнесе, в том числе работа в огромной по тем временам Группе компаний РЕСТЭК. Я видел десятки конференций и форумов, открытий и церемоний и был уверен, что удивить меня будет трудно. Или, как говорят сейчас, мне всё понятно в этом мире уже абсолютно.

Начало только укрепляло эту уверенность. Большой зал кинотеатра «Колизей», небольшая выставка в фойе, свободная рассадка, бейджи, пакеты участников. Всё шло вполне ожидаемо.... 

Иван Лебедев (“Элрон”) о российской ЭКБ и ее будущем

Интервью с генеральным директором “Элрон” о российской микроэлектронике, электронной компонентной базе, импортозамещении и RISC-V.

На каналах “КЕДР Солюшенс” вышел 9-й выпуск подкаста “Платы и байты”. Публикуем ключевые темы и идеи разговора для тех, кто предпочитает читать. 

Гостем Егора Гуторова в этот раз стал Иван Лебедев, генеральный директор компании “Элрон”. Говорили о том, как компания прошла путь от контрактного разработчика до производителя собственных продуктов. Обсудили, как изменилось отношение потребителей к российской электронике и какое будущее ждет отрасль.

Many of those affected in England and Wales think offences are not treated with the seriousness they deserve, says commissioner

Bereaved families or seriously injured victims of road crime feel “forgotten by the system” with offences not treated with the seriousness they deserve, an official review has found.

The victims’ commissioner for England and Wales found that many of the thousands afflicted each year by criminal driving felt that “the harm they had suffered mattered less” than that from other serious crimes.

Rise in new mine proposals, mainly in states of Odisha and Jharkhand, comes despite plateau in global demand

Enough new coalmining projects were proposed last year to increase global supplies by 2.5bn tonnes a year, an increase of 11% from the year before, even as demand for coal plateaus, according to a new report.

Global Energy Monitor, an NGO, found that India ignited a rise in new coalmine proposals in 2025 despite a global slowdown in the number of mine openings because of falling demand for the fossil fuel.

Hakainde Hichilema is bidding for second term, but feud between him and family of Edgar Lungu, who died in 2025, continues

As Zambians go to the polls on Thursday, the ghost of the current president’s predecessor hangs over the elections.

Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is bidding for a second term leading the southern African country after defeating his arch-rival Edgar Lungu by a landslide in 2021.

Post-Brexit visa rules and faceless pen-pushers were keeping me and my partner apart. But love finds a way

Consider your ideal wedding. You may picture religious pageantry, majestic domes and the auspicious light of the Divine beaming on a white dress. Maybe you see friends dancing on a pub’s veranda, cheering for you in front of a town hall, or anywhere really – the people you love are there, and it’s all that matters.

What you are probably not picturing is a meet-up with Chris and Mitch, two complete strangers waiting for you and your future spouse by a nondescript fountain in the middle of Copenhagen. Judging by my soon-to-be-wife’s bewildered laugh throughout the entire 20 minutes of our wedding, this is not what she was picturing either. Should I add that neither of us is Danish, or lives in Denmark?

Jules Darmanin is a French journalist

When exiled Russian opposition campaigner Igor Rogov was accused of working for the Kremlin, his friends were shocked. Could this young activist have really been an undercover agent?

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The police came for Igor Rogov because someone had mailed him a bomb-making kit. The eclectic mix of items – a chrome vacuum flask, a pair of marker pens, a power bank and a bottle of antifreeze fluid – might have seemed innocuous to an untrained eye, but Poland was on high alert in July 2024. Two months previously, a shopping mall in Warsaw had burned down in an arson attack; an Ikea in neighbouring Lithuania was also set on fire. Authorities believed it was a sabotage campaign masterminded by Russia’s intelligence services, intended to sow panic and undermine support for Ukraine. They feared it was only a matter of time before the Kremlin escalated further.

A security officer at the parcel company’s warehouse was suspicious enough about the package to call in the authorities, who arrived with sniffer dogs and special equipment. X-rays of the marker pens showed they had 1980s Soviet-produced detonators concealed inside, while the flask had a false bottom containing a sachet of metallic powder. The power bank appeared to have been tampered with in some way, and a probe of the bottled liquid showed it contained a highly volatile nitroglycerine solution. With the right expertise, the items could be turned into a powerful bomb.

This documentary follows the shocking case of Neil Hopper, a top surgeon who had his own legs removed due to a fetish.

No fetish or obsession is unique, and the internet can always connect you with others whose minds work the same way. It’s one of the great blessings and curses of the digital age, and central to An Amputation Obsession: the Monster and the Surgeon, a two-part documentary on which the “contains material some viewers may find disturbing” disclaimer is no exaggeration.

We begin at the Royal Cornwall hospital, known locally as Treliske, in Truro, Cornwall. It used to have a man on its staff who was a minor medical superstar: Neil Hopper, a vascular surgeon, was well known for his clinical expertise and comforting bedside manner, particularly when advising on and performing amputations. He acquired full hero status in 2019, when he was diagnosed with sepsis and had both legs amputated below the knee but miraculously returned to work within six months, astonishing physiotherapists and other medical professionals with how well he adapted to disability.

An Amputation Obsession: the Monster and the Surgeon is on Prime Video

Call it a crisis, call it a decline, call it a recession: the long, lusty snog is in trouble, harder to experience in real life or even watch on screen. But why? And what’s it like to think you may never lock lips with another?

Spencer’s last kiss was two years ago, on a first date. It started off promisingly: after matching on Tinder, they met for a walk, then got drinks and ice-cream, before having dinner at her place. Finally, they kissed. “I didn’t like it,” says Spencer. He still struggles to identify why. “I found her attractive. There was chemistry, but something was lacking. There was nothing behind the kiss – it felt like a mechanical thing to do.”

That wasn’t just Spencer’s most recent kiss – it was his first ever, at the age of 29. Now 31, he says a second kiss in some ways feels less possible than having sex: “The jump feels way bigger.”

As his new film & Sons hits the screen, the actor turned podcast agony uncle relives his ‘cliched’ ambitions, deplores working lunches – and yearns to do the splits like Prince

A dying patriarch summons his brood for a dramatic announcement. It may not be the most original starting point for a movie, but & Sons adds an eccentric twist – one that it would be unfair to reveal here but which nudges the material into the realm of science fiction. The father in question is a revered novelist who is as reclusive as JD Salinger and as whiskery and dishevelled as Catweazle. Dormant for decades, the fictional AN Dyer is first glimpsed in a horizontal position on the sofa, refusing to come to the telephone: “I don’t do phonecalls,” he grumbles.

That is patently not true of the actor who plays him. “I spend a lot of time on the phone,” Bill Nighy says breezily. He is speaking to me from north-west London, where he has been nosing around bookshops. “I’m also an enthusiastic texter. I was always very quick on the old Nokia. Quite proud of myself, I was.” Where does he stand on emojis? “I used to be philosophically opposed. Most of them are a bit naff.” He then proceeds to list the exceptions. “I like the flamingo and the purple dahlia. I like the leaping shark. Sometimes I combine it with the leaping dolphin. Very occasionally, I like the golfer in mid-swing if I’m congratulating someone. I don’t do smiley faces.”

As a controversial Spanish plan for sustainable meat on an industrial scale is dropped, it has revived the ethical debate over farming these intelligent wild animals

In 2022 Nueva Pescanova, Spain’s largest fisheries business, announced it was investing €65m (£56m) in the world’s first industrial octopus farm and processing plant near the Canary Islands’ port of Las Palmas.

Despite the creatures being notoriously difficult to farm, the company predicted that by 2025 it would be producing 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year on Gran Canaria.

Hakainde Hichilema is bidding for second term, but feud between him and family of Edgar Lungu, who died in 2025, continues

As Zambians go to the polls on Thursday, the ghost of the current president’s predecessor hangs over the elections.

Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is bidding for a second term leading the southern African country after defeating his arch-rival Edgar Lungu by a landslide in 2021.

Rise in new mine proposals, mainly in states of Odisha and Jharkhand, comes despite plateau in global demand

Enough new coalmining projects were proposed last year to increase global supplies by 2.5bn tonnes a year, an increase of 11% from the year before, even as demand for coal plateaus, according to a new report.

Global Energy Monitor, an NGO, found that India ignited a rise in new coalmine proposals in 2025 despite a global slowdown in the number of mine openings because of falling demand for the fossil fuel.