The US has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. In a letter seen by Reuters, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that officials would help expedite the transfer of at least two dozen aircraft from Denmark and the Netherlands, expected to take place in early 2024. Some 20,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the northern Canadian city of Yellowknife because of approaching wildfires. People are waiting in hours-long queues to board flights and sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get out before the deadline later today. Bonnie Prince Charlie wasn't as handsome as history remembers, says the Daily Mail. When scientists at the University of Dundee created a model of the Young Pretender's face from his death masks, they found that his hair was a "mess of dirty blonde ringlets" and his skin was "marked with pimples". |
The recreation of Bonnie Prince Charlie: not such a looker |
Malkinson after his rape conviction was quashed |
A case so egregious it "shakes all faith in the system" |
Locking up innocent people was an "inevitable part" of Keir Starmer's old job as Director of Public Prosecutions, says Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. If you're putting thousands behind bars, "statistically, some convictions will have been wrongful". So you might have thought that if new DNA technology could help rectify miscarriages of justice, prosecutors would use it. On the contrary. Our justice system appears happy to bury new evidence and "institutionally opposed to reopening cases". Take Andrew Malkinson, whose rape conviction was recently quashed after another man's saliva was found on the victim's vest. It now transpires that the CPS, then run by Starmer, first received this evidence back in December 2009 – but chose not to investigate any further. |
For 13 years, the British state had evidence that could have freed an innocent man. Notes from the time are a "case study in denial": the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) decided there was "no certainty that the vest-top DNA sample is crime-specific", even though it had been found next to where the victim suffered a bite wound. There are several reasons why CPS officials may have been reluctant to reopen the file – pressure to close the "justice gap" between rape reports and convictions, for example. But this is a case "so egregious that it shakes all faith in the system around us". At the very least, the Prime Minister should announce a "full KC-led investigation". And if Starmer really is in politics to "expose injustice", as he claims, then he should be "leading the charge". |
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Winners of this year's World Sports Photography Awards include shots of Zhou Guanyu's Formula 1 car upside down following a crash at the British Grand Prix; the match-winning kick in a snowy American football game between the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins; a Team Kazakhstan athlete emerging from the water as part of an artistic swimming routine; and Lee Westwood playing a shot while appearing to be shrouded in clouds at the LIV Golf Tournament in Miami. See the rest here. |
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When Michael Parkinson was working in Australia in the early 1980s, says Popbitch, Elton John invited him and his wife to a party on his yacht. Unfortunately, they arrived at the jetty a little late, "just in time to catch the HMS Elton sailing off towards the horizon". But thankfully, a couple of water cops recognised Parky and ferried the couple out to the vessel. Once they were aboard, however, Elton was "furious". On seeing the police boat approaching, the rest of the party had assumed it was a drugs bust and "lobbed all their gear overboard". Thousands of dollars' worth was "lost to the deep" – and "the Parkinsons were pariahs for the rest of the night". |
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Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, which wrapped up its first North American leg last week, has been "both a business and a cultural juggernaut", says The New York Times. The 33-year-old has sold an estimated $14m in tickets each night, with the full 146-date bonanza expected to pull in a record $1.4bn – around 50% more than the current record holder, Elton John's $939m farewell tour. It's hardly surprising: Swift has had more top No 1 albums on the Billboard charts than any other woman, and this year became the first artist to place four albums in the Top 10 at the same time since trumpeter Herb Alpert in 1966. |
De Gaulle in 1965. Dominique Berretty/Gamma-Rapho/Getty |
If only Putin were more like de Gaulle |
Vladimir Putin has a surprising amount in common with Charles de Gaulle, says Gideon Rachman in the FT. Like Putin, the French president was always obsessed with his country's image and status as a big power. "France cannot be France," he wrote in his memoirs, "without greatness." And just as Putin wants to atone for the break-up of the Soviet Union – he once called it a "geopolitical tragedy" – de Gaulle was "intent on rebuilding national grandeur" after the humiliation of Nazi occupation during World War Two. |
The similarities end there. When de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, many "assumed and hoped" he would double down on France's fight to keep Algeria. Instead, he realised that "fighting a losing colonial conflict would destroy French greatness rather than rebuild it". By allowing Algeria its independence, he enabled France to "forge a new future" – not as a superpower, but as a "global player in culture, diplomacy, business, sport and military affairs". Its grandeur now rests on "the global respect it inspires, rather than on raw power". Putin, in contrast, couldn't imagine Russia as a post-imperial nation, and still measures his country's greatness by its ability to "control territory and inspire fear". His invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the folly of this "imperialistic" way of thinking. It's a tragedy of leadership. "Russia needed its own de Gaulle. Instead, it has ended up with a pale imitation of Ivan the Terrible." |
America's Mullet Champ competition has unveiled the 25 finalists for best kid's mullet of the year. Contenders include children with haircuts they have called "The Axel", "The Electric Slide", "Son-Of-A-Soldier" and "Mufasa". See the full selection here. |
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Russia's economy really is in "dire straits", says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. The rouble has sunk a whopping 40% in value since November, and this week briefly dropped below the "psychological line" of 100 to the dollar. Energy sales to Europe have dropped to €2bn a month, down from €12bn last year. The Kremlin has so little "usable hard currency" that it can't afford replacement aircraft parts – some of its Aeroflot passenger jets are having to land with their brakes switched off so as not to wear them out. "Pilots have to rely on reverse-thrust alone." |
It's the windmill that appeared in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is now up for sale. The structure, in the Chiltern Hills, was the home of Caractacus Potts, the eccentric inventor in the 1968 film. Including the adjoining house, the property has a total of six bedrooms, a swimming pool and about 37 acres of land. It's on the market for £9m. |
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"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." American cartoonist Charles Schulz |
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