Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A report on the Spectator’s coverage of Muslims makes for grim reading. Conservatism is now focused on this minority to the exclusion of everything else
I start this column already resigned to the tune out, to the glaze over, the click away. This is not to say that I do not have faith in you, dear reader, to keep reading and caring. But I am aware, and this is central to the problem, that it is now normal, when it comes to a certain minority in this country, to speak of them as if they were some sort of plague. Islamophobia has become so common as to be mundane in large parts of the British media. Foremost among the offenders is Britain’s oldest political magazine: the Spectator.
A large and comprehensive report from the Centre for Media Monitoring reviewed 3,733 articles published in the Spectator relating to Islam or Muslims. Released last week, it criticised the publication for “a sustained and systemic pattern of biased coverage of Muslims and Islam”, according to the CMM, “with more than half of all relevant articles rated as biased over an eight-year period”. It is grim, grim reading.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Chaos of Capita-run scheme has left some people waiting up to a year for payments and in financial hardship
Retired civil servants have been failed by the decision to outsource their pension scheme, the government has admitted, and the maladministration meant some were left waiting up to a year for payments.
Multiple members of the civil service pension scheme, run by the private company Capita since December, have come forward to say they are unable to afford rent and have been forced to use food banks after being left without an income.
Continue reading...The Guardian goes on the ground with Brazilian forces fighting to eradicate mining that has destroyed protected areas of Indigenous land
The jerry-built bordello at the foot of Vila Cururu, an illegal gold-mining settlement at the heart of Brazil’s most desecrated Indigenous territory, was a hive of depravity until just a few weeks ago.
Inebriated prospectors huddled around wooden tables, swigging beer and Scotch whisky, and ogling pole-dancing sex workers before going with them to shacks behind the brothel.
Continue reading...Rustic, authentic and utterly delicious – three dishes that bring the taste of the trattoria straight to your table
Pesto trapanese combines almonds, tomatoes, pecorino and a hint of garlic and basil to create a fresher version than the typical Genovese variety, and I especially love the way the richness of the almonds is lifted by the fresh tomatoes – when they’re pureed together, it creates a wonderful mouthfeel. For me, though, pasta pomodoro symbolises home. My mum’s was a cornerstone of our trattoria, as it is at Italian restaurants around the world, and every family has their own fiercely guarded recipe. I developed this particular method when I started Pasta Princess, which delivered hand-rolled pasta and pomodoro sauce all over London during lockdown. It kept me grounded when I was in between kitchens, and resurfaced at Tiella, where it features regularly on the menu. Finally, torta caprese is a wonderfully rich flourless chocolate cake made with ground almonds. Mum often made a similar cake called torta gianduia, which uses hazelnuts instead of almonds, a recipe that hails from Piedmont, the heart of Italy’s hazelnut production (the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe variety is particularly prized for its incredible quality and flavour, carrying the IGP label to denote regionality and strict production standards). I remember her once buying these special hazelnuts on a trip to Italy, and taking them back home to New Zealand so she could make gianduia. When the cake came out of the oven, the aroma was so incredible that she decided to bring it home rather than putting it on the menu, and shared it with us instead.
Continue reading...The route to this World Cup victory involved beating the other 2022 finalist and then suffocating Argentina as they dried out in the sun
Time to break the staff, bury the book and call time on that rough magic. There was, by the end, an undertone of sadness about Lionel Messi, New Jersey and a World Cup final that brought Spain the glory of an entirely deserved second trophy, and which saw Argentina offer almost nothing beyond a gnarled and gristly sense of resistance.
This is an Argentina team built on faith, devotional energy and a belief in the frankly irrational magic of your lone scurrying 39-year-old genius. Well, sometimes that magic will forsake you. The deus ex machina will refuse to appear. And he is perhaps gone from this stage now for good, a Prospero giving his final address to the crowd from a clanky metal bowl outside New York.
Continue reading...A pranked England manager, a bored Beckham, a Viking takeover and an unwise Wayne Rooney wager: here are the TV treasures of the beautiful game’s biggest ever tournament
A stodgy final saw silky Spain deservedly beat cynical Argentina. Football wasn’t coming home after all as England suffered semi-final heartbreak again, before salvaging some pride to finish third – their best World Cup finish since 1966. The Tartan Army drank America’s bars dry as their team went out with a whimper. Cape Verde lasted longer than Germany. It was the end of the road for Ronaldo and Modric, while the phrase “hydration break” entered everyday parlance. But beyond the pitch, it has been an eventful five weeks, too.
Here are 26 viral World Cup moments you might have missed …
Continue reading...Without iron-clad legal safeguards, offshore migration centres can only repeat the worst mistakes of the recent past
Europe has entered a new era of outsourced migration management. After a vote by the European parliament, the EU’s return regulation is nearing adoption – promising “more efficient” returns and “swifter” procedures to deport unwanted migrants. This will give countries the legal runway to set up return hubs – that is, offshore facilities to process people deemed to have no right to stay in the EU.
Despite opposition from countries such as Spain and France – and an outcry from rights groups – many other governments appear anxious to join in. An open letter signed by 19 EU member states just days after the vote at the European parliament, urging the “full use of the new possibilities”, indicates that implementation might be coming soon. Frontrunners like Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are already on the starting block, poised to establish joint hubs which are likely to become operational in short order.
Continue reading...At 78, the king of horror and sci-fi movies is as much of a rebel as ever. He talks about creativity, compromise (he’s not a fan) and how he became addicted to moviemaking
In 2024, John Carpenter had a dream that sounds like one of his movies: it involved a portal to the underworld beneath a disused church, monstrous demons and people being turned inside out. “I woke up and thought: wow! What an elaborate story,” he says. “I rarely have cinematic dreams, but this was one of them.” He liked it so much that he has turned it into a graphic novel, Cathedral, with an accompanying soundtrack. “It seemed to fit this heavy metal groove that we were starting on, and it worked out pretty well.”
Most people would consider this a nightmare rather than a dream, I suggest. “No. Nightmares, for me, are personal – something that happened to me,” he replies. “Usually my nightmares are, I’m directing a movie and no one will listen to me. No one will follow my directions. Seriously, that’s what I wake up from.”
Continue reading...The Manifesta biennale is taking over a dozen tiny churches in German towns ravaged by division and decline – and filling them with ball games, bouncy castles and a radical community spirit
After Germany’s Ruhr conurbation – the third-largest urban area in western Europe – was pummelled during the second world war, planners came up with an ingenious idea. About 80% of the sprawl – which incorporates big cities such as Essen and Duisburg, and dozens of smaller towns like Bochum and Gelsenkirchen – had been destroyed. And so, for the reconstruction, a newly formed Diocese of the Ruhr built literally hundreds of closely packed Pantoffelkirchen or “slipper churches”, so named because they were close enough to housing developments for churchgoers to walk to mass in their slippers.
Today, Pantoffelkirchen are declining sharply. Estimates of the amount of disused or derelict churches are as high as 300, and 100 have been sold off in the last year alone. Until October, 12 of them are home to Manifesta, the travelling art biennale. They stand as centrepieces of communities that have been ravaged this time not by war, but by deindustrialisation, mass unemployment and environmental decline.
Continue reading...Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists
For many birdwatchers, recording a species outside its normal range is the holy grail. In the UK, the discoveries often make national headlinesThe western reef heron, for example, usually found in Africa and southern Europe, spotted in a seaside town in north Wales in June, which was widely celebrated on birding forums.
But a new scourge is threatening to disrupt the fun: AI slop.
Continue reading...
DEN HAAG (ANP) - De politie registreerde in de eerste zes maanden van 2026 ruim 9 procent meer drugsmisdrijven dan in dezelfde periode een jaar eerder. Afgelopen halfjaar waren er bijna 7900 geregistreerde gevallen van drugsmisdrijven, tegenover ruim 7200 in de eerste jaarhelft van 2025.
Volgens de politie worden drugsmisdrijven geregistreerd bij bezit, verhandeling of productie van verboden middelen. De politie noteerde afgelopen halfjaar in Zuid-Holland de meeste drugsmisdrijven, zo'n 1750. Noord-Brabant volgt met bijna 1550 misdrijven.
In Flevoland nam het aantal registraties met meer dan de helft toe; dit is landelijk de sterkste stijging. Daarna volgen Noord-Brabant en Friesland. Limburg zag in de eerste helft van dit jaar de grootste daling van het aantal drugsmisdrijven. Daar nam het aantal met bijna 12 procent af tot 861 registraties. Per 100.000 inwoners werden hier nog steeds de meeste drugsmisdrijven gepleegd, bijna 76.
Almere
In de twintig grootste gemeenten was de toename het grootst in Almere, waar het aantal registraties op jaarbasis meer dan verdubbelde. Van deze gemeenten daalden de cijfers het sterkst in Zoetermeer, met een afname van bijna 44 procent.
Het ANP heeft de politie om een verklaring gevraagd voor de toename van het aantal drugsmisdrijven, maar zij heeft daar nog niet op gereageerd.
marikoroid has added a photo to the pool:
A flower that blooms in an uninhabited garden.
空き家の庭にノーゼンカズラがきれいに咲いていました。