Premium cherry-on-the-vine are poised to take top spot in Britain’s £1bn-a-year tomato market
For a long time the classic round, red tomato has dominated British salads and sandwiches, but its supremacy is coming under threat as sales of rainbow colours and the upmarket rival “cherry on the vine” take off.
“Non-red tomatoes” sales are up 21% this year, a growth rate that far exceeds the overall market, according to Paul Faulkner, of Evesham Vale Growers.
Continue reading...Alleged thieves in October 2025 robbery damaged a gem-encrusted crown worn in the 19th century by Empress Eugénie
Two men suspected of making off with €88m (£75m) worth of crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris last October have reportedly told investigators that the alleged mastermind behind the heist was disappointed by the haul and thought “they could have taken more”.
The French newspaper Le Monde cited transcripts of the alleged thieves’ questioning last month by two investigating judges in charge of the inquiry, offering detailed insights into the burglary that made global headlines and led the museum’s director to resign.
Continue reading...Abir Al-Sahlani targeted on social media after condemning anti-immigration chants in European parliament
A Swedish MEP has filed a police complaint accusing a fellow MEP of racist hate speech after she was targeted on social media over her condemnation of far-right, anti-immigration chants in the European parliament.
The complaint, which was filed last week with police in Sweden, relates to the aftermath last month of the decision by some rightwing MEPs to erupt in chants of “send them back” following a vote aimed at increasing deportations across the EU.
Continue reading...He beat brain cancer. Now your favourite DJ’s favourite DJ is on a UK tour, armed with experimental techno, Beastie Boys and Taylor Swift
Ten years ago this month, Japanese DJ Yousuke Yukimatsu had an epileptic seizure. When he didn’t show up for a festival booking, organisers got in touch with his friends in Osaka, who found him collapsed at home. He was taken to hospital where doctors diagnosed a brain tumour. “If no one had contacted me, I might have died,” he posted on a crowdfunding platform several months later.
In the black-and-white photograph accompanying the crowdfunder to support his work, Yukimatsu leans his head towards the camera, his buzz cut growing out around a thick ragged scar that curves from his left ear to the top of his hairline: he’d been through two craniotomies, plus extensive chemo and radiation therapy. The illness also left him with a realisation that he needed to make DJing his full-time job; to dedicate himself to his craft and make the world a better place. “If we can keep living [for] tomorrow, if I can encourage people … that’s what I’m always trying to do,” he says now. “The world is getting much worse than the time when techno was born [in the mid 1980s]. Weapons are being developed; it’s getting easier to commit a massacre. In Japan, if a musician speaks about politics, they can be hugely criticised. But I think it’s really important to speak up.”
Continue reading...Premium cherry-on-the-vine are poised to take top spot in Britain’s £1bn-a-year tomato market
For a long time the classic round, red tomato has dominated British salads and sandwiches, but its supremacy is coming under threat as sales of rainbow colours and the upmarket rival “cherry on the vine” take off.
“Non-red tomatoes” sales are up 21% this year, a growth rate that far exceeds the overall market, according to Paul Faulkner, of Evesham Vale Growers.
Continue reading...Alleged thieves in October 2025 robbery damaged a gem-encrusted crown worn in the 19th century by Empress Eugénie
Two men suspected of making off with €88m (£75m) worth of crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris last October have reportedly told investigators that the alleged mastermind behind the heist was disappointed by the haul and thought “they could have taken more”.
The French newspaper Le Monde cited transcripts of the alleged thieves’ questioning last month by two investigating judges in charge of the inquiry, offering detailed insights into the burglary that made global headlines and led the museum’s director to resign.
Continue reading...Abir Al-Sahlani targeted on social media after condemning anti-immigration chants in European parliament
A Swedish MEP has filed a police complaint accusing a fellow MEP of racist hate speech after she was targeted on social media over her condemnation of far-right, anti-immigration chants in the European parliament.
The complaint, which was filed last week with police in Sweden, relates to the aftermath last month of the decision by some rightwing MEPs to erupt in chants of “send them back” following a vote aimed at increasing deportations across the EU.
Continue reading...Josh Fawaz’s song, a cover of Like a Prayer, has raised questions about how generative AI is being used in music and whether it should be declared
An Australian producer has gone from little-known artist to viral sensation in a matter of months, with his hit song catapulting on to global charts and receiving thousands of radio spins.
There’s just one problem: music experts and other musicians are questioning whether he produced it. They claim Josh Fawaz’s most popular song, a cover of Madonna’s Like a Prayer which reached the No 1 spot on the National Radio Airplay chart, could have been made using AI.
Continue reading...The far right leader’s career is not the issue: it’s whether a politician with her record has a legitimate right to seek office
For many years, I have observed Marine Le Pen and her party and how they operate in France. I have heard their xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric and felt it contaminate French political life. It is a rhetoric rooted in the history of a party founded by figures from France’s postwar far right. Nothing they do or say surprises me any more. But even by their standards the crime is extraordinary.
A French court of appeal confirmed last week that Le Pen was guilty of a central role in orchestrating a scheme that systematically embezzled public funds for more than a decade. That the investigation also took 10 years may explain the absence of public shock waves, or why the focus has been on Le Pen’s future political moves rather than on her misdeeds. So let’s recap.
Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, film-maker, activist and Guardian Europe columnist.
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Continue reading...Flights were cancelled and we were told we’d be staying in Iceland for the night. But the hotel had no idea we were coming and people started screaming when I fell down, hard, on the ice
A couple of days before I was due to take a trip to New York with my mum in February, the city was hit with the worst blizzard it had seen in years. Unsurprisingly, our flight was cancelled. Our travel agent managed to reschedule the holiday for later in the week – our journey out would now connect in Reykjavík, Iceland. The holiday was rescued … or so we thought.
The flight to Iceland went without a hitch until the final moments, when the pilot informed us that a mini-blizzard was passing over Keflavík international airport and we would have to redirect to a domestic airport 15 minutes away. We still had hope that we could make our connection, but after several hours on the tarmac that hope died.
Continue reading...She has built an unlikely career in mould, maggots and excrement, cleaning for those who most need it. It can take months building trust with a stranger, before she and her boyfriend go in and transform everything
‘There might be a dead bird in the box room. We think it has been there for a couple of years,” says Bea Elton, raising her voice to be heard through her respirator. It is particularly robust, as she has a dust and cat hair allergy. “Not ideal,” in her line of work, the 28-year-old concedes.
Knowing it would be difficult to talk on the job, we spoke before we arrived, struggling into hazmat suits, shoe covers, gloves and masks in the overgrown garden outside the front door. “I refer to myself as a cleaner. I would never refer to myself as a cleanfluencer,” says Elton. The slick videos on her platform, CleanWithBea, which record her transforming homes fallen into extreme dirt, decay and dilapidation, tell a different story. She has more than six million followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, who have crowned her a celebrity of this genre, her audience keen to watch the imperfect made perfect in a world that feels increasingly out of control. Yet no matter how many of her polished videos you watch, nothing can prepare you for entering one of the homes she cleans in person.
Continue reading...Dharminder Singh ‘asserts his innocence’, lawyer tells reporters, amid outpouring of grief for young mother in Queensland city
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The former partner of a woman whose body was found near Toowoomba at the weekend has appeared in court for the first time after being charged with her murder.
Dharminder Singh covered his face and appeared to sob as he appeared in Toowoomba magistrates court via video link, charged with the murder of 30-year-old Jana Armstrong.
Continue reading...Officials say blaze in Fontainebleau forest is of ‘exceptional scale’, with 900 homes evacuated and road and rail links hit
French firefighters are tackling a blaze of unprecedented scale sweeping through Fontainebleau forest south-east of Paris, while in southern Spain the prime minister visited the scene of a deadly wildfire and warned: “The climate emergency kills.”
The fire in Fontainebleau, a one-time royal hunting preserve about 40 miles (60km) from the French capital that today is dotted with villages, began late on Sunday afternoon. The blaze, which is unusual in its proximity to Paris, raced across about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of forest.
Continue reading...Officials say blaze in Fontainebleau forest is of ‘exceptional scale’, with 900 homes evacuated and road and rail links hit
French firefighters are tackling a blaze of unprecedented scale sweeping through Fontainebleau forest south-east of Paris, while in southern Spain the prime minister visited the scene of a deadly wildfire and warned: “The climate emergency kills.”
The fire in Fontainebleau, a one-time royal hunting preserve about 40 miles (60km) from the French capital that today is dotted with villages, began late on Sunday afternoon. The blaze, which is unusual in its proximity to Paris, raced across about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of forest.
Continue reading...US president declares waterway open and demands tariff as both sides engage in heavy drone and missile exchanges
Donald Trump has once again threatened to take control of the strait of Hormuz, as he announced the reimposition of a naval blockade on Iran and demanded a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the key maritime passage.
Declaring the strait “open”, Trump suggested in a post on his Truth Social platform that the US should be known henceforth as the “Guardian of the Strait of Hormuz”, as Iran and the US engaged in some of the heaviest drone and missile exchanges since an interim deal was negotiated to bring an end to the conflict.
Continue reading...American and Iranian forces exchange heavy missile and drone attacks over control of strait of Hormuz, increasing pressure on truce
The US military has launched a new wave of attacks against Iran amid the escalating standoff over the strait of Hormuz, with Tehran saying the latest strikes had “rendered futile” all the diplomatic efforts of the past few months.
The US military began launching more strikes against Iran at 9pm GMT on Sunday, US Central Command (Centcom) said on X, “to continue degrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.
Continue reading...Indonesia’s government is grappling with how to manage waste at Bantar Gebang – Jakarta’s largest landfill – which supports the livelihood of thousands of waste pickers
On the outskirts of Jakarta, huge rolling peaks of rubbish stretch across more than 100 hectares (247 acres), towering over nearby villages. Each day a convoy of trucks plough in and dump more garbage into one of Asia’s largest landfills.
Here, thousands of people live on the fringe of the site and make their income picking through the waste and salvaging scraps for resale. The work is dangerous – earlier this year seven people died after one of the massive trash mounds caved in, burying them alive.
Continue reading...Odyssey director addresses industry fears over artificial intelligence and says rightwing criticism of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy is ‘irrelevant’
The Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan believes the kind of movies he makes – big-budget action films shot mostly on location – would survive the spread of artificial intelligence, a technology he says many people “disdain”.
The Oppenheimer and The Dark Knight director is promoting his latest blockbuster, an adaptation of the Greek epic The Odyssey, which will be released in cinemas this week.
Continue reading...