New York commuter rail system shuts down as workers strike

Men arrested at ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march meeting point over incident on Thursday after flags were removed from lamp-postsTwo men have been arrested in London following an incident in Birmingham in which a man was run over by a van after flags were removed from lamp-posts.Officers arrested the men at Euston station near the meeting point of the “Unite the Kingdom” march. Continue reading...

Member of King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery received medical treatment but died at scene after sustaining serious injuriesA service person has died after falling from their horse after a display at the Royal Windsor Horse show, police said.The soldier, part of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, fell at about 7pm on Friday after exiting the arena. Continue reading...

Republican said she hoped recent commutation of Tina Peters by governor would free up federal funding for clean drinking waterRepublican congresswoman Lauren Boebert suggested that Donald Trump blocked funds for a clean drinking water project in her state over the prosecution of election denier Tina Peters.Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, commuted Peters’ nearly nine-year prison sentence on Friday, ordering her release on 1 June. The former Colorado county clerk had allowed unauthorized people to access voting records amid efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Continue reading...

It has long been suspected the Revolutionary Guards – specifically its Quds Force – was responsible for recent terror attacks in London, Canada and across EuropeThe arrest by US authorities of an alleged Iraqi commander of an Iranian-backed militia group now accused of responsibility for 18 terrorist attacks in the UK, Europe and Canada since the beginning of the Iran war is an astonishing development – yet not the least bit surprising.According to a complaint unsealed on Friday in a federal court in Manhattan, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi is allegedly responsible for organising – among other operations – a string of recent firebombings of banks and other targets in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, an arson attack against a synagogue and a shooting at the US consulate in Toronto in March, as well as – most recently – a wave of attacks on mainly Jewish targets in the UK including places of worship and charities. Continue reading...

Authorities previously suspended recovery operation for bodies of four divers believed to have died while exploring Vaavu Atoll caveDivers in the Maldives have resumed their search for the bodies of four Italian scuba divers who drowned while exploring a deep underwater cave.Due to rough weather on Friday, Maldivian authorities had temporarily suspended the high-risk operation to recover the bodies of the divers who, according to Italy’s foreign ministry, had “apparently died while attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 metres (165ft). Continue reading...

With Punta Marina residents loving or loathing the incomers, ‘peacock rangers’ have been appointed to defuse tensionsFederico Bruni was sitting on a bench, eating a piadina romagnola (flatbread sandwich) and minding his own business, when a peacock strutted up in the hope of a few crumbs. High-pitched squeals emanated from the direction of a disused military barracks across the road. “That would be the call to love,” Bruni said. “The male peacocks are courting the female ones – we’re in peak mating season.”As another couple of peacocks wandered by, their iridescent trains sweeping the pavement behind them, this could be mistaken for a wildlife park. But the scene is Punta Marina, a seaside town on the Adriatic coast of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region that has been colonised by the birds, to the delight – or despair – of its approximately 1,000 residents. Continue reading...

Once Upon a Time in Harlem, completed by relatives of William Greaves after his death, showcased at CannesIn 1969, the pioneering documentarian William Greaves wrote of his fury over the racially degrading stereotypes that white film producers threw up on American screens. “It became clear to me that unless we black people began to produce information for screen and television there would always be a distortion of the ‘black image,’” he said.Three years later, Greaves began work on what he considered the most important footage he ever shot: a feature documentary gathering surviving figures of the Harlem Renaissance to reflect on the movement they had built half a century earlier. Continue reading...

Planning inspector backs council’s rejection of development which was ‘not exemplary, extraordinary, remarkable or distinctive, just tall’Celebrities including Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger have defeated plans to build a 29-storey tower on the banks of the River Thames.Jagger, along with fellow rockstar Eric Clapton, actor Felicity Kendal and comic Harry Hill, fought the developer Rockwell Property for two years over its plan to erect a 100-metre tower next to Battersea Bridge. If the tower had been built on the south bank of the Thames in south-west London, it would have rivalled the heights of the famous chimneys on Battersea power station. Continue reading...

After death of his father, Reed Jobs is keen for his $1bn venture capital fund Yosemite to make a difference“I saw my dad have cancer when I was a kid, and unfortunately that happens far too often. And that really motivated me to try to transform outcomes for other people out there.”Reed Jobs is talking about the death of his father, the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2011 at the age of 56, the experience that underlines his mission to make cancer a non-lethal, treatable disease. Continue reading...

Conservatives expected to keep majority as socialists face drubbing and ballot tests trajectory of far-right Vox partyVoters in the southern Spanish region of Andalucía will cast their ballots in an election this weekend that is likely to deliver an absolute majority to the conservative People’s party (PP) and inflict another debilitating defeat on Pedro Sánchez’s embattled socialists in what was previously one of their proudest strongholds.Sunday’s election in Spain’s most populous region – the last big poll before next year’s general election – will serve as a barometer of wider electoral opinion and could also reveal whether the popularity of the far-right Vox party is beginning to peak. Continue reading...

Bill Cassidy raised ire of US president for voting to impeach after January 6 – so Trump is backing Julia LetlowThe power of Donald Trump’s endorsement will be put to its latest test on Saturday, when Louisiana holds primary elections in which the US senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach the president following the January 6 insurrection, then tried to make amends by casting the pivotal vote to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary, stands a chance of losing his party’s nomination.An incumbent Republican running for a third term representing a deeply Republican state, Cassidy would normally be a shoo-in for re-election. But in January, Trump abruptly said that the US representative Julia Letlow should run against Cassidy and offered his endorsement, underscoring his continued willingness to seek revenge against anyone in the Republican party who has crossed him. Continue reading...