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United Airlines has canceled all flights to Israel until May 2, according to United travel alerts...
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‘It’s been a thrill!’ My first time at the mind-boggling Melbourne comedy festival
Fri, 19 Apr 2024 15:26:01 GMT
At the world’s biggest barrel of laughs, Hannah Gadsby, John Kearns and Rose Matafeo rub shoulders with homegrown stars-in-the-making. Our writer has the time of his life
What’s the biggest comedy festival in the world? Parochial Britons would say Edinburgh. Internationalists may consider Montreal’s Just for Laughs. They would all be wrong. Just for Laughs is out of the running: it filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, its future in doubt. And the Edinburgh fringe is a performing arts festival not just comedy. So for now, if only on that technicality, Melbourne has the biggest comedy festival in the world: a three-week carnival of standup, sketch and beyond, dedicated to nothing but the art of making people laugh.
In 20-plus years writing about comedy, I had never been – until now. But I have felt its influence. Twice recently, the winner of its most outstanding show award went on to win the Edinburgh equivalent. One was Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, arguably the most significant standup set of the last decade, which launched in Melbourne before conquering the world. And as recently as 2022, a former Melbourne champ – recent Taskmaster star Sam Campbell – won Edinburgh’s top prize, of which Australia has now provided more winners than any other non-UK country. The festival also played a weathervane role in the “trans debate”, when its main award – for years known as the Barry, after Barry Humphries – was re-named after the Dame Edna star’s divisive comments about transgender people.
Continue reading...The state says EMTALA, a law barring discrimination in emergency medical care, interferes with its abortion ban.
The post Idaho Goes to the Supreme Court to Argue That Pregnant People Are Second-Class Citizens appeared first on The Intercept.
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The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, is speaking to the media after a 16-year-old was charged with a “terrorist act” for allegedly stabbing a bishop on Monday and is expected to appear at a bedside hearing today.
She said members of the joint counter-terrorism team interviewed the alleged offender at a medical facility last night, and he was subsequently charged with a commonwealth offence for terrorism and refused bail.
We expect he will be attending a bedside court hearing today to determine bail. This relates to the stabbing of the Bishop [Mar Mari Emmanuel, who] we allege on Monday night [was] stabbed up to six times.
We also allege that the boy had travelled for 90 minutes to attend that location from his home address.
We’ve got a crisis of male violence in Australia. We know that it’s a scourge in our society, we know it must end and I think it’s really clear women can’t be expected to solve violence against women although it is time for men to step up.
I don’t think debating definitions is the way to go … We need to act, we need to educate ourselves, men need to step up, we need to talk to our sons, to our colleagues, to our friends. We need to work together to a solution. And I think going down some kind of almost a wrong path to say let’s redefine – it’s not about definitions. This is about action. We need to shift the way in which we think about this …
Continue reading...From camping beside glacial lakes in Montenegro to birdwatching in Poland, the continent has no shortage of inspiring wilderness adventures
One of the most incredible bird scenes in Europe took place as I hiked through the Bielawa nature reserve in northern Poland, about 40 miles north of Gdansk. I had left the village of Sławoszyno via a dirt track and was heading towards Kłanino, the open countryside and fields disappearing from my sight as the hedgerows grew taller either side of me. As I stepped forward, a gap appeared in the hedge and in front of my eyes a flock of nearly 100 cranes, which had been silent, took off across the field, honking with their red-tinged heads and faces, and feathery wing feathers flapping. I could almost touch them. The 19,000-hectare (47,000-acre) park is a mix of forest, wetland and coast.
Rita
Video shared across social media shows alleged IDF strikes and sniper fire targeting groups of people attempting to travel to the north of Gaza, which Israel says is an active 'war zone'. The northern half of the coastal enclave has been sealed off by the Israeli military, but rumours spread over the weekend of civilians passing through, triggering a wave of people trying to return to their homes
Continue reading...From Puerta del Sol plaza in Madrid to the Tuileries Garden in Paris, guides reshape stories continent tells about itself
Dodging between throngs of tourists and workers on their lunch breaks in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol plaza, we stop in front of the nearly 3-tonne statue depicting King Carlos III on a horse. Playfully nicknamed Madrid’s best mayor, Carlos III is credited with modernising the city’s lighting, sewage systems and rubbish removal.
Kwame Ondo, the tour guide behind AfroIbérica Tours, offers up another, albeit lesser-known tidbit about the monarch. “He was one of the biggest slave owners of his time,” says Ondo, citing the 1,500 enslaved people he kept on the Iberian peninsula and the 18,500 others held in Spain’s colonies in the Americas. As aristocratic families sought to keep up with the monarch, the proportion of enslaved people in Madrid swelled to an estimated 4% of the population in the 1780s.
Continue reading...From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...The state says EMTALA, a law barring discrimination in emergency medical care, interferes with its abortion ban.
The post Idaho Goes to the Supreme Court to Argue That Pregnant People Are Second-Class Citizens appeared first on The Intercept.
It was an unlikely setting for a revolution. But at Lee Valley VeloPark, where Team GB’s cyclists dominated at London 2012, the International Olympic Committee on Friday set the wheels in motion for how artificial intelligence could transform the sporting landscape.
“AI will be a revolution for our society,” the IOC president, Thomas Bach, said. “And it will be a revolution for sport. It will be a fascinating new lap in the Olympic race – and in Olympic history.”
Continue reading...Senior Iranian official says there is no plan for immediate retaliation. Plus, all 12 jurors seated in Trump criminal trial
Good morning,
Israel carried out airstrikes against Iran on Friday and explosions were reported in the sky over the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz. The Iranian government sought to play down the scale of the attack.
What is the context? The Israeli strike is in retaliation for a Iranian aerial attack involving 300 missiles and drones on Sunday morning, Iran’s first ever attack on the Jewish state, which in turn was a reprisal for the bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus on 1 April.
What does it say about US-Israeli relations? Benjamin Netanyahu defied Joe Biden, who had urged Israel not to respond militarily but to “take the win” of having shot down Iranian missiles.
How was the UN security council vote on Palestinian UN membership split? The 15-member body voted 12 in favor, the US opposed, and two abstentions, the UK and Switzerland.
What happens next? The court still needs to appoint six alternate jurors. At least one alternate had been selected before court concluded on Thursday.
How did the judge rebuke the press? He said to exercise “common sense” and “refrain from anything that has to do, for example, with physical descriptions” of jurors. He prohibited reporting on employers of jurors. It came after Fox News ran a segment on Tuesday that directly attacked jury members.
What will the 12 jurors decide? Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over an alleged $130,000 hush-money scheme involving Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. He pleads not guilty.
Continue reading...Case of the Iuventa became a symbol of what activists say are growing attempts to criminalise refugee aid workers
Judges in Sicily have acquitted all crew members of an NGO rescue boat who had been accused of aiding and abetting illegal migration, in a case seen by activists as a symbol of the criminalisation of those who have sought to help at-risk refugees and migrants at sea.
Friday’s verdict, after seven years of proceedings, followed a surprise turn of events in February when prosecutors in Trapani unexpectedly requested the charges be dropped owing to a lack of evidence.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Harry and other claimants argued trial delay to examine timing of claims would be ‘highly disruptive’
Prince Harry has won the latest bout of his long-running legal battle with the publisher of the Sun after a high court judge rejected an application to delay the trial.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) had applied to push back the trial for alleged unlawful information gathering – which is scheduled for January next year – to allow the court to examine whether claims of unlawful news gathering by Harry and 41 others were brought too late.
Continue reading...They might not be Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but the X Factor judges’ ding-dong over Simon Cowell is a joy
All weekend and on into Monday, the row between the TV presenter and erstwhile wife of Les Dennis, Amanda Holden, and the managerial powerhouse Sharon Osbourne has been quite something. In brief: on Celebrity Big Brother Sharon slagged off their joint sometime-boss Simon Cowell. Holden then leapt to his defence in a Daily Mail interview, calling Sharon “bitter and pathetic”. Sharon then delivered a two-page diatribe against Holden, listing her many and lucrative achievements long before The X Factor entered her life, much though she enjoyed her judging stint. “Simon paid me very well. Probably more than what you’re receiving today, but all that, my darling, went on a few handbags.”
Continue reading...A show in which women competed to date a royal lookalike was panned at the time as ‘fodder for the braindead’. But the contestants had been duped, as a new podcast reveals …
Next month marks a decade since one of the most ridiculous reality shows ever aired on television. I Wanna Marry “Harry” was a dating show in which 12 American women dated Prince Harry, then the world’s most eligible bachelor. Only, obviously, it wasn’t him at all. The “Harry” in question was a lookalike: according to the show, a “99% lookalike” (I will let you be the judge).
Airing on Fox in the US before making its way to ITV2, the reality show consisted of the dozen potential girlfriends being whisked to a secluded mansion in the Berkshire countryside, then going on a series of dates with the fake prince. It was constantly implied by the production team that they were in the presence of royalty: Harry was even referred to as “sir”, when really he was plain old Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant from Exeter who had had his hair dyed ginger. The stunts for the ruse were quite something: from “sir” being whisked away by men in sunglasses after a “security incident”, to fake paparazzi invading a date before being tackled to the ground. Fake Harry was even Photoshopped into an image alongside the real Prince William for a potential date to stumble across while Hicks went to the bathroom.
Continue reading...With all 18 jurors now chosen, the trial is expected to move toward opening statements next week
One potential juror has been excused this morning after saying that her anxiety is too intense, and will only worsen as “as the more days that go on”.
Her family will ultimately piece together that she’s on the jury, she said.
I have really bad anxiety, so I think I might not be completely fair and not impartial, so that concerns me.
We’re also still working on the temperature in the courtroom.
I want to apologize that it’s chilly in here ... We’re trying to do the best we can to control the temperature, but it’s one extreme or the other.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/Nice_Quantity_9257 [link] [comments] |
Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse she’s suffered simply for being a modern black woman
Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliver’s children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussex’s new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.
In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. It’s only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, it’s goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.
Continue reading...U.S. military service members interviewed for a congressional inquiry said intelligence reports about how bad the situation is were being suppressed.
The post U.S. Troops in Niger Say They’re “Stranded” and Can’t Get Mail, Medicine appeared first on The Intercept.
The university suspended three students out of hundreds participating in an on-campus encampment to protest the Israeli government.
The post Columbia Suspends Ilhan Omar’s Daughter One Day After Omar Grilled School Administrators appeared first on The Intercept.
Parties appearing before the Supreme Court can fund the groups that file briefs supporting their arguments — and almost never have to disclose it.
The post The Gaping Hole in Supreme Court Rules for Tracking Links Between Litigants and Influence Groups appeared first on The Intercept.
In congressional testimony, school administrators also said they are investigating pro-Israel and pro-Palestine professors.
The post Columbia Suspended Two Students for Assault on Gaza Rally, School Says in Antisemitism Hearing appeared first on The Intercept.
Despite Biden’s pledge to support a two-state solution, cables argue that Palestine should not be granted U.N. member status.
The post Leaked Cables Show White House Opposes Palestinian Statehood appeared first on The Intercept.
We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2021: Flordelis grew up in a Rio favela, but rose to fame after adopting more than 50 children, becoming a hugely successful gospel singer and winning a seat in congress. And now she is on trial for murder. By Tom Phillips
Continue reading...Biden campaign co-chair Rep. Veronica Escobar co-led a congressional letter questioning the administration's compliance with its own arms transfer memo.
The post Democrats Question U.S. Claims That Israel Isn’t Violating International Law Using American Weapons appeared first on The Intercept.
Columbia, Vanderbilt, and Pomona College all seriously disciplined students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza this month.
The post Ahead of Congressional Testimony, Columbia President Cracks Down on Student Advocacy for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
New York congressional hopeful John Avlon, a centrist with GOP ties, was endorsed by a party chair widely blamed for losing the House.
The post Remember the Centrists Who Lost the House in 2022? They’re Back! appeared first on The Intercept.
A RAND Corporation study finds that negative experiences in the military are a main cause of veterans turning to extremism.
The post There’s a Bigger Driver of Veteran Radicalization Than Donald Trump appeared first on The Intercept.
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