Month: May 2019

News of the royal baby filled the front pages of several papers on Tuesday – and many, many pages beyond. While there were no new pictures of the Duchess of Sussex or the baby, the Mail, Mirror and Express heroically still managed to devote 23, 11 and 11 pages of coverage respectively to the birth…

While Extinction Revolution was gearing up for another impressive protest, Barry Lopez was considering a pair of sparrows mating atop a cantilevered sign on New York’s Upper East Side. It wasn’t the most momentous of couplings, hardly the millions-strong gathering of geese he witnessed in his award-winning book Arctic Dreams or as moving as his…

I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that my younger brother wears bras and knickers. He doesn’t know that I know. This came up 25 years ago when some of my knickers were found in a suitcase hidden in a closet. Now he is 40 and I just found out he wears…

A Rainy Day in New York, the film completed by Woody Allen in 2018 but left in limbo after backers Amazon Studios terminated its agreement with him, is set for release in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. According to Variety, distributors Lucky Red have purchased rights to the film in Italy and plan to release…

Kevin Smith, director I worked in six convenience stores in New Jersey from 1989 to 1993, which is where Clerks came from. It was an appealing, easy job, like being a bartender: it puts you nominally in charge and people have to socialise with you. Seeing Richard Linklater’s Slacker on my 21st birthday showed me…

Humanity must save insects, if not for their sake, then for ourselves, a leading entomologist has warned. “Insects are the glue in nature and there is no doubt that both the [numbers] and diversity of insects are declining,” said Prof Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. “At some stage the whole fabric…

A mural of the journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Derry last month, has been unveiled in her home city of Belfast. The image, created by Emma Blake and 21 other artists, covers much of the city’s Kent Street as part of the Hit the North street art festival. The picture is painted…

Sixteen-year-old Dasani sits in a room, his hands lightly twisting his hair. Breathing labored, he recounts the memories of the streets of Chicago to his lawyer, Patricia Soung, and case worker, Lammy. While he doesn’t say what he is seeing, it is later revealed he witnessed the murder of his mother as a five- or…

Rio de Janeiro’s new governor, Wilson Witzel, is facing criticism after tweeting a video from a helicopter while observing a police operation in which shots were reportedly fired by the forces. According to one local councillor, police snipers were onboard the helicopter during the mission over drug-gang controlled areas in the seaside town of Angra…

A Church of Scientology cruise ship docked in the Caribbean island of Curaçao will remain under quarantine until government authorities determine how many of the ship’s 318 passengers are infected with measles. Health officials have taken 277 blood samples from those onboard the ship and sent them to the Netherlands. The results are expected to…