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I still feel pain of '98 but this can be different for England, says Shearer
Inside the secret Laos shops selling pangolin scales, bear bile and tiger bones to tourists
Covert footage obtained by the Guardian shows how crime networks are using souvenir shops to hide a booming wildlife trade targeted at a new influx of Chinese tourists
The shop is dark and deserted. Though the door is open, there is clearly no expectation of any customers walking in off the street. Visits are likely by appointment and from a specific clientele. This shop is part of an organised crime network. What is being sold is highly illegal and incredibly unethical.
Anyone wandering in would see large bags of specialist tea, local coffee, trinkets and cigarettes on the shelves. But the photographs of wild animals adorning the walls offer a clue to what is truly for sale here.
Continue reading...China economic growth falls sharply, missing target
Anthropic launches "Claude for Teachers," giving educators a year of free access to AI tools
Houston prosecutor could bring charges against ICE agents in fatal shooting
I still feel pain of '98 but this can be different for England - Shearer
Singapore court orders Bloomberg to pay ministers $356,000 in defamation case
Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, stands by reporting, saying ministers who sued ‘imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story’
Bloomberg News and one of its reporters have been ordered to pay S$460,000 (US$355,734) in damages after an article it published was found to have defamed two Singapore government ministers, the city-state’s high court said in a judgment released on Tuesday.
Bloomberg and the reporter, Low De Wei, are liable to jointly pay S$230,000 to each minister, comprising S$170,000 in general damages and S$60,000 in aggravated damages, the judgment said.
Continue reading...Singapore court orders Bloomberg to pay ministers $356,000 in defamation case
Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, stands by reporting, saying ministers who sued ‘imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story’
Bloomberg News and one of its reporters have been ordered to pay S$460,000 (US$355,734) in damages after an article it published was found to have defamed two Singapore government ministers, the city-state’s high court said in a judgment released on Tuesday.
Bloomberg and the reporter, Low De Wei, are liable to jointly pay S$230,000 to each minister, comprising S$170,000 in general damages and S$60,000 in aggravated damages, the judgment said.
Continue reading...7/14: The Takeout with Major Garrett
7/14: CBS Evening News
Houston prosecutor says he's trying to get visas for witnesses of fatal ICE shooting
3 teens arrested after acid attack on 6 women in New Jersey
Search continues after boat capsizes, killing at least one in San Francisco Bay
Scaloni: ”Dejaremos hasta la última gota de sudor para llegar a la final"
Utility companies requested $9.2 billion in rate increases during second quarter, report shows
Trump Says His Thursday Speech Will Focus on Election Security and Voting Machines
Security video captures moments after man was fatally shot by ICE in Maine
How Jeffrey Epstein earned a $25 million payout through a bank's DOJ settlement
NASA astronaut joins two Russians on trip to International Space Station for 8-month stay
Parasite outbreak spreads across U.S.
One Dead and Two Missing in San Francisco Bay After Boat Capsizes Near Alcatraz
The new squad aiming to ensure Burnham keeps to key pledge
Ukraine war briefing: Spotlight on ‘hundreds’ of alleged PoW executions by Russia
Ukraine attacks deter Russian shipping in Sea of Azov; loudest cheers for Kyiv’s troops at Bastille Day parade in Paris. What we know on day 1,603
The Russian army has executed hundreds of Ukrainian PoW since 2022 under a deliberate policy, Kyiv says, with the exact number of victims unknown. A Ukrainian intelligence official told Agence France-Presse they have tracked “more than 900 military personnel” killed in “more than 340” incidents since 2022. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they added this might represent 25%-40% of such cases. Under the Geneva conventions, soldiers are considered PoW – and afforded protection – from the moment they issue a clear surrender.
A UN report from June cited 129 verified executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war, with the organisation sounding the alarm last year over a “marked increase” in cases. Andriy Atamantchuk from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said that to date Kyiv has opened 116 investigations into the killings of 306 Ukrainian servicemen since 2022. “This stems from a Russian policy that has effectively encouraged and enabled such crimes, with commanders then issuing orders to that effect,” he said. The accusations are rejected by Moscow and Agence France-Presse said Russian authorities did not reply to an AFP request for comment.
Russia’s transport ministry admitted it may have to divert cargo away from the Sea of Azov as Ukraine continued to pound Russian shipping there. The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces said on Tuesday that Ukraine had hit “116 vessels over the past nine days”, including several tankers and cargo ships, in the Azov sea. He said the aim was to damage Russia’s “shadow fleet” and to limit Russia’s petrol supplies to Moscow-controlled Crimea.
Ukraine’s military said it struck two Russian oil refineries in the Bashkortostan and Krasnodar regions, causing fires at the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat complex as well as the Afipsky oil refinery. Russian authorities confirmed a fire at the Afipsky refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, and at Salavat in the Urals region of Bashkortostan.
Sevastopol, one of the largest cities in Russian-controlled Crimea, was limiting power supplies after Ukrainian attacks, local authorities said on Tuesday. Crimea has already introduced restrictions on gasoline usage because of fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and logistics infrastructure. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said electricity would be supplied for two hours, followed by six-hour outages.
Ukraine’s air defences managed to shoot down five out of eight ballistic missiles that Russia fired overnight into Tuesday – an increased interception rate – along with 108 out of 135 drones, the Ukrainian air force said. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said Russian attacks still damaged 16 sites in the capital, including a school and a business, while city officials reported several fires. Zelenskyy said Russian attacks injured seven people in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region and three in the northern Chernihiv region. He called on European allies to pass their latest sanctions package this week.
Kyrgyzstan’s government on Tuesday indefinitely banned exports of gasoline, diesel fuel and oil in response to fuel shortages in Russia, from which the Central Asian country sources the vast majority of its fuel needs. Kyrgyzstan has appealed to neighbours for help in making up for Russian fuel supplies, and sought diesel and jet fuel from Belarus and China.
Ukrainian troops marched down the Champs-Élysées as part of the Bastille Day parade in Paris. Kyiv’s troops got the biggest cheers of the day from crowds on the tree-lined avenue. Ukrainian co-pilots trained in France were on board two French Mirage 2000B fighter jets that flew over. Zelenskyy watched as guest of honour alongside Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, formally resigned in parliament on Tuesday as part of a government reshuffle previously announced by Zelenskyy. The parliament is expected to vote for a replacement on Thursday. Opposition lawmakers have called for Zelenskyy to further explain the overhaul of his government.
Continue reading...‘Den of spies’: why has Japan been easy prey for Russian espionage, and what is Tokyo doing about it?
Postwar rules limit state collection of intelligence and prosecution of illegal operatives, but the government of Sanae Takaichi is beefing up its capabilities
After eight decades as arguably the most welcoming environment for foreign spies in the democratic world, Japan – where espionage is technically not illegal in many cases – is racing to build its own spying and counterintelligence capabilities.
Reports that Japan has become a hub for Russian operatives procuring technology for the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine come as Tokyo undergoes its biggest postwar rethink of its security services.
Continue reading...The Papers: 'You can do this' and 'Widdecombe suspect probed'
Trump pays writer E Jean Carroll $5m in damages over sexual abuse and defamation
Seven Britons among those killed in Spain wildfires
Anya Taylor-Joy Is a Consummate Action Hero in Heist Thriller Lucky
After years of speculation over who might fill Daniel Craig’s brogues, the announcement of the next James Bond finally seems imminent. Reportedly under consideration are names like Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Aaron Taylor-Johnson—all solid, though not quite thrilling, choices. But if I could throw just one more into the mix, it would be Anya Taylor-Joy. She’s not the most obvious candidate, to be sure. She isn’t British, though she did spend much of her childhood in London (Elordi is Australian). And among the small-minded, the idea of a female Bond remains unthinkable. Still, any reasonable person who witnesses her performance in the propulsive yet emotionally grounded Apple TV crime thriller Lucky is bound to find themselves thinking of 007.
Premiering with two episodes on July 15, this adaptation of Marissa Stapley’s 2021 best-seller casts Taylor-Joy in a role that combines the physicality of her Furiosa hero, the cerebral acuity of her character in The Queen’s Gambit, and the mesmerizing strangeness that has been her signature since The Witch. Taylor-Joy’s Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong is a con artist in a desperate situation. Both second-generation criminals who’ve tried to go straight, she and her husband, Cary (Drew Starkey), have just pulled off a classic final heist—you know, the kind that always goes wrong—and are celebrating in Vegas with plans to make an early-morning escape into anonymity. But when Lucky awakens, disoriented, in her hotel room, Cary and the cash have vanished. She’s left running from not just a tenacious FBI agent (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s Billie Rand), but also Priscilla, a deceptively refined crime boss played with icy calm by Annette Bening. The only person she trusts, her grifter dad, John (the recently ubiquitous Timothy Olyphant), is in prison.
It should be obvious that skillful pacing is a bare-minimum requirement for a good thriller, but the streaming era has produced so many bloated takes on the genre that Lucky’s constant command of our attention feels like a revelation. Showrunners Jonathan Tropper (Your Friends and Neighbors) and Cassie Pappas (Silo) have confined to a taut seven episodes a story other writers might have padded out to fill an overwrought 10. (In fact, they could’ve devoted more time to Rand, an obsessive-cop character that verges on cliché and leaves the wonderful Ellis-Taylor underutilized.) With Lucky both chasing Cary and being pursued by her powerful enemies, action scenes are frequent and dynamic; an early one has her darting between big rigs parked tightly together at a truck stop. But Tropper and Pappas also know when to slow down, using quiet moments to develop relationships, build suspense, or both. Tension soars as Rand approaches the isolated home where Lucky is hiding out with a grandmother and her girls.
She is there under false pretenses, having earned the guarded woman’s trust by saving the young granddaughters from a rattlesnake and then claiming that she’s fleeing an abusive husband. In the strictest sense, this is a lie. Yet Taylor-Joy lets us see that emotional truths underlie Lucky’s many deft deceptions; maybe Cary didn’t beat her, but he has betrayed her dramatically enough to put her in grave physical danger. I spent several episodes wondering whether the show would address how the character uses her gender—not just her sexuality, but her seemingly fragile beauty, her believability as a victim, the ease with which she helps and bonds with other women—to get what she needs out of people. When it does, quite late in the season but just in time to recast one of Lucky’s core relationships, the payoff is enormous.
Tropper and Pappas put twists in all the right places, effectively controlling viewers’ access to characters’ motives, loyalties, and backstories without coming across as manipulative. Larger questions arise organically, about parents who put their work—whatever it may be—before their children and about good vs. evil vs. the limitations of binary morality. There are many strong performances. Olyphant makes a captivating father figure, his outlaw-philosopher charm obscuring the inevitable flaws of a man who raised his daughter to be a criminal. Bening is fun in queenpin mode; look out for a scene that calls back to her iconic gun-range moment in American Beauty. Instead of succumbing to tropey writing, Ellis-Taylor fights hard for specificity.
But it’s Taylor-Joy who makes the whole thing work. She’s riveting in action sequences, balancing stealth and grace and fear and resourcefulness. Her face registers micro-emotions. Her wide eyes speak their own language of panicked blinks and observant stares. A closeup of Lucky engaged in any act of social engineering makes perceptible to the viewer hesitations and internal conflicts that would be invisible to her mark. Her only real disadvantage in playing a fugitive—or an undercover agent—is a presence so unusual, it can’t be believably disguised. Ultimately, though, distinctiveness is an asset for an action star. We like them to stand a bit apart from us regular folk. Bond wouldn’t be Bond if he could easily disappear into a crowd.
The U.S. and Iran Reckon With Shrinking Options to End the War
Pressure Builds Over Israel’s Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners
1 dead, 3 missing after boat capsizes near Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay
Trump backs off Strait of Hormuz toll plan as cost of Iran war mounts
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Spain into World Cup final with victory over France
Pressure is on Argentina, they're world champions - Guehi
LGBTQI+ artists have been targeted for ‘insulting Christianity’. To queer people, this feels particularly cruel | James Thorpe
A theatre pop-up in a former Sydney church has been accused of ‘offensive trade’. But if causing offence can lead to eviction, every artist is vulnerable
A priest and two nuns walk into a bar. In Sydney this week, this wasn’t the setup for a bad joke but for a fiery culture war.
The bar in question is within a long-deconsecrated church, and the City of Sydney is considering an application for its redevelopment into luxury apartments. Divine Playhouse, which opened to the public last Wednesday, is a year-long queer-friendly and inclusive arts pop-up, supported by the New South Wales government and the City of Sydney.
Continue reading...Florida executes one of its oldest prisoners in state’s 10th lethal injection this year
Man who was 74 was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a month
Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its state history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.
Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6.16pm after a three-drug injection at Florida state prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on 1 January 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year’s Eve party.
Continue reading...WATCH: Jay Clayton testifies in confirmation hearing for director of national intelligence
A special team beats brilliant individuals - how silky Spain flattened France
Videos Detail Moments Surrounding Fatal ICE Shooting in Biddeford, Maine
Florida executes one of its oldest prisoners in state’s 10th lethal injection this year
Man who was 74 was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a month
Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its state history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.
Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6.16pm after a three-drug injection at Florida state prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on 1 January 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year’s Eve party.
Continue reading...A special team beats brilliant individuals - how silky Spain flattened France
1 dead, 3 missing after boat sinks near Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay
OpenAI researcher Miles Wang in talks to launch AI drug discovery startup valued at $2B
One person dead and two missing after boat sinks near San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island
Another 16 people rescued after ‘pontoon pleasure boat’ sinks about 600 yards from famous tourist attraction
One person was killed, two were missing and 16 were rescued after a pontoon boat capsized and sank near San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island on Tuesday, authorities said.
Nineteen people were aboard the vessel at the time of the incident.
Continue reading...‘It means love’: Scottish World Cup fans celebrate Boston with orange traffic cone
‘Boston cone’ arrives to fanfare in first-class seat from Glasgow before planned trip to raise money for mental health
Fresh off its first-class flight from Glasgow, it received a reception befitting a visiting dignitary: a bagpiper in full regalia playing inside Boston Logan international airport. Waiting to greet it were diplomats, the governor and Boston’s mayor.
The guest of honor? An orange traffic cone.
Continue reading...