Month: May 2019

Several female members of an alleged New York sex cult, including the actor Allison Mack, became dangerously thin after following near-starvation diets at the direction of the group’s leader, a 12-year veteran of the group testified in court on Monday. Film-maker Mark Vicente is a key prosecution witness at the criminal trial of Keith Raniere,…

Dundee University took tens of thousands of pounds from a blind Nigerian PhD student in return for what it promised him would be “state of the art” disabled facilities if he came to the UK with his young family to complete his studies. Instead, Bamidele Chika Agbakuribe, who is totally blind, claims the university gave…

Rising inequality in Britain risks putting the country on the same path as the US to become one of the most unequal nations on earth, according to a Nobel-prize winning economist. Sir Angus Deaton is leading a landmark review of inequality in the UK amid fears that the country is at a tipping point due…

Lesley Manville was at the bus stop the other day when the comedian Simon Amstell spotted her and came up for a chat. He wanted to know what she was doing there. Manville affects bewilderment. “I said: ‘Well, why? I’m going to get the bus.’ He said: ‘I don’t imagine you getting the bus.’” He…

With Avengers: Endgame ending its third weekend of world domination with its self-imposed “spoiler ban” lifted, fans and press have entered full-on dissection mode. In this, the film’s creators seem only too happy to oblige. Over the past week, directing duo Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have given several…

Cold-blooded gharials, a crocodile-like species unique to south Asia, catch the last of the day’s warmth as a setting sun paints the sky crimson above the Chambal river. Two jackals and a jungle cat scuttle up thorny ravines that box in the expansive blue water, while the orange-beaked Indian skimmer bird glides overhead. In a…

The natural shyness and reticence of the actor Peggy Lipton, who has died of cancer aged 72, lent her work an enigmatic, often melancholy quality. A chunk of time spent off-screen between the two TV series for which she was best known – The Mod Squad and Twin Peaks – only added to that sense…

Violence has flared in Sudan’s capital Khartoum after the military council and opposition groups said they had agreed to a power structure for the country’s transition following the removal of President Omar al-Bashir last month. Heavy gunfire was heard late into the evening, and the council said a military police officer had been killed and…

In his bridge-club cords and grandpa shoes, 80-year-old Yvon Chouinard doesn’t look the rock-star entrepreneur. And, when he speaks, he doesn’t sound much like one either. The founder of US outdoor apparel brand Patagonia believes stock market valuations are “absurd”, investing in shares is “buying blue sky” – and modern-day capitalism is destroying the planet….

Late summer, 2005. A hot evening. All the windows are open and I’m watching a film in the living room with my fiancee. When the film finishes, I go through to the bedroom. Nothing looks quite right. Books that had been lined up on the windowsill are piled on the floor and on a chair….