Distilleries are the backbone of Islay’s economy and tourist trade. Thanks to their success, other businesses – from breweries and farms to restaurants and chocolatiers – are now thriving and adding to the island’s appeal

The Paps of Jura disappear into the mist as I pedal along the shores of Loch Indaal, and the rain cloud I’ve been racing finally catches up. I stash my hire bike at Port Charlotte youth hostel, quickly change and make it to Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen just before the downpour.

I’m soon warmed, by the welcome then by a bowl of creamy fish chowder. “We’ve plenty of fresh seafood just in,” is all the temptation I need to order the seafood plate. It’s a bowl for one, but a hungry one, and soon I’m picking and cracking my way through piles of fat langoustines and crab claws, with hot whisky-butter scallops and plenty of bread and butter.

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A group of thinly drawn characters on a Louisiana tour fight for survival against a rampaging vegetarian

This animal-attack horror plugs a gap with beasties – hippopotamuses – that may be deadly in real life but are hard to take seriously as a threat on screen. As someone says here, they have cute ears. Even the film’s title, evoking the kids’ game Hungry Hungry Hippos, diminishes the menace. That’s perhaps not the tone to set if you’re trying to persuade audiences that fatal consequences are in the offing. And as the script often reminds us, hippos are vegetarian, so hunger isn’t driving these multi-ton mammals to murder. Turns out they’re massively territorial, and especially dangerous when protecting their young. That, or they do just think killing people is fun.

The film naturally spends less time worrying about the hippos’ motives and dwells more on the victims, who look pretty doomed given their thin characterisations. This lot certainly weren’t expecting to be attacked by a hippo when they woke up because they are on a bayou tour in Louisiana, where the biggest threats are normally alligators.

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Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.

Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.

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South African artist Puleng Mongale explores how her childhood church still connects her to the women of her family, not through religion but shared history and memory

This image, called Holy Gang, combines an image of a church in my mother’s home town, Fateng-tse-Ntsho, in Free State province, South Africa, with self-portraits of me, multiplied to form a group of women. Although at first glance the women are moving towards the church, it is not the final destination.

Positioned higher, beyond the church, is what appears to be a rising sun. For me, the sun represents a place where I can meet and be with my ancestors beyond religious limitations, even though they were members of the church and I am not.

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Deep sorrow mingles with illicit desire in this potent novella, the follow-up to a 2006 story about an isolated family in the Catalan mountains

Twenty years ago, Colm Tóibín published a steadily desolating novella set in the high villages of the Catalan Pyrenees. A woman walks out of her house and her life, starts along the mountain road and disappears in the snow. Her son Miquel, failing to find her body, waits through the dark months for the thaw. A Long Winter, which appeared in a standalone volume and then as the final story in the 2006 collection Mothers and Sons, followed Miquel through dramatically extreme circumstances and patient endurance. It was told with the most restrained prose ever likely to be employed for a son’s view of vultures circling a corpse.

Now, in The Bridge, a single year has passed in Miquel’s life and he is eking out an existence with his hurtful, unyielding father. The sheep are grazing their high summer pastures; a side hustle smuggling contraband brings in a little much-needed cash. In the bare conditions of the lonely farm, any warmth of feeling is a kind of contraband smuggled in by night; love between men is doubly illicit. The grave tenderness that grows between Miquel and his father’s maltreated servant Manolo gives The Bridge its emotional centre. These young men salve the emptiness with a few quiet words and touches. We sense their youthful beauty and resilience, their suppleness in a place of fixity.

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Exclusive: sanctions against ministers and settler groups are ‘smoke and mirrors cop-out’ says Omar Barghouti

Britain’s legal and ethical obligation to stop a genocide in Gaza requires it to take bigger steps than halting trade with illegal Israeli settlements or imposing further sanctions, Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has said.

He described sanctions against individual settler groups or extremist ministers as a “smoke and mirrors cop-out and distraction” from the UK’s legal obligation under international law to end all support for Israel, including arms exports, trade deals and academic relations that “may directly or indirectly enable Israel’s illegal occupation” of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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For a decade I lived with a fear so bad that I once tried to climb out of a tube carriage while it was in motion. Then a hypnotherapist told me to ask my parents one very important question

In 2000, I had been living in London for just over a decade and working at EMI Records for five years. I had moved to Brixton from Surrey – where space and peace were generally abundant – in the late 80s, and I’d noticed I was becoming increasingly anxious and claustrophobic, particularly on public transport.

As things got progressively worse, I had a string of distressing panic attacks. Every time, it felt like the world around me was closing in. Then, in July 2003, during my daily commute between Brixton and the South Bank, I had a panic attack so intense I tried to climb out of the tube carriage doors. Thankfully, other passengers held me back until we arrived at the next platform – but I knew the problem was no longer something I could ignore.

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KATHMANDU (ANP/AFP/RTR) - Het dodental door de overstroming in Nepal is opgelopen tot 1114, meldt de rampenbestrijdingsdienst in het land. Nog eens 3916 mensen worden vermist. De ramp trof het gebied precies een week geleden. Het officiële dodental in Tibet staat volgens Chinese staatsmedia op zestien. Daar worden 546 mensen vermist.

Er zijn nog niet veel lichamen overgedragen aan de nabestaanden, meldt de politie. Dat is tot nu toe met maar 95 overledenen gebeurd. De meeste resten zijn nog niet geïdentificeerd. In veel gevallen wordt maar een klein deel van een lichaam gevonden.

Chinese reddingswerkers zijn er deze woensdag in geslaagd om de enige toegangsweg naar de grensovergang bij Gyirong te heropenen. Daarmee kan voor het eerst zwaar materieel naar het rampgebied gebracht worden. Dat is volgens de staatstelevisiezender CCTV inmiddels ook "in grote aantallen" gebeurd. De toevoer van hulpgoederen en materieel ging tot nu toe door de lucht.

From the internet that brought you Is My Blue Your Blue? (previously), How Well Can You Remember Colors (previously), and JND (previously)... and the 2025 game (previously) and countless "can you name [n] [things]?" games... comes Color Counter! Name 100 colors and finally prove to your parents that you deserved the big box of Crayola.

via. And yes, I reached 100, though I did use the one color named in the instructions. Fair warning: part of the "fun" is discovering some inconsistencies in how these names are formed.