2 h. ago Jair Bolsonaro faces justice over alleged attempt to usurp Brazilian democracy

Former president in court along with seven others accused of failed power grab after losing 2022 electionBrazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and seven of his allies, including four senior members of the military, have gone on trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup – the first time in Brazilian history such powerful figures have faced justice for seeking to topple the country’s democracy.Bolsonaro, a paratrooper turned far-right populist who governed from 2019 until 2023, stands accused of masterminding a failed power grab after losing the 2022 election to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Continue reading...

Society

2 h. ago Premier League transfer window's biggest loser clear amid Liverpool and Arsenal debate

THE BIG DEBATE: Records were smashed left, right and centre in the Premier League, as all 20 clubs combined to make it most expensive summer transfer window in the history of the top flight

Sport

2 h. ago Bill Belichick’s humiliating college football debut brings only schadenfreude or sadness

The greatest head coach in modern NFL history has started anew at UNC. His first game exposed flaws that will be very difficult to fixHalf a century of unprecedented success, six Super Bowl rings as a head coach, the NFL’s greatest defensive mind; all undone by 19-year-olds sprinting past missed tackles. Bill Belichick arrived at North Carolina promising to bend college football to his will, to build the “33rd NFL Program” in Chapel Hill, and prove he still had his fastball. College football laughed.As debut flops go, North Carolina’s 48-14 beatdown at the hands of TCU is as bad as it gets. Belichick’s side didn’t just lose; they were humiliated. UNC looked unprepared, undisciplined and were overmatched against a veteran team. Continue reading...

Sport

4 h. ago Shock at scale of destruction as Afghanistan earthquake death toll climbs to more than 1,400

Rescuers are still battling through heavy rain to reach survivors, with the Taliban authorities appealing for international aid

Events

4 h. ago 150th anniversary event explores the trailblazing women behind QMU

As part of Queen Margaret University’s 150th anniversary celebrations, a special public talk and Q&A will explore the remarkable legacies of women who shaped Scotland’s history and are associated with the institution.

Politics

4 h. ago A new mosque could soon be built in one Greater Manchester town

The mosque plan would see the current place of worship completely transformed

Politics

5 h. ago ‘Clearly the worst film ever made by anyone ever’: the story behind John Boorman’s horrific Exorcist sequel

After landmark flop The Heretic, the director was considering ‘immolating myself on Hollywood Boulevard’ in 1977. But a new documentary premiering at Venice calls for its redemption‘Evokes not terror but laughter.” “A movie for morons, a total cheesy rip-off that makes not one minute of coherent sense.” “The stupidest major movie ever made.” These were some of the milder responses from reviewers to Exorcist II: The Heretic, one of the most notorious disasters in Hollywood history, on its release in 1977. Its director, John Boorman, says he felt utterly humiliated and close to despair. “I considered my choices. The first was to commit suicide. The second was to defect to Russia,” the chastened director told one interviewer. He asked another if he could atone for his film by “immolating myself on Hollywood Boulevard”.What was the problem? Audiences had, most likely, been looking for shock and horror, revolving heads and vomit, but Boorman gave them metaphysics and surrealism instead –...

Politics

5 h. ago Rest and Be Thankful A83: Road reopens after heavy rainfall causes 11 landslips near major road

Drivers faced a 60-mile diversion during a “considerable” clean up operation to clear the debris.

Politics

6 h. ago The Two Roberts by Damian Barr review – lost story of a gay art duo

The lives of Scottish artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, who found love and fame and lost it all, are vividly reimaginedWhat if the protagonist of a novel was not a single person but a couple? Damian Barr takes on this challenge, and he’s found a historic couple who make the ideal source material. Working-class Scottish artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun were rarely apart after they met in 1933. They lived and worked together, became famous together and then declined into desperate squalor together – even poorer than when they began.Barr knows what it’s like to conquer Glasgow from a small, working-class town on its outskirts; he knows what it’s like to find yourself feted for your portraits of the place you’ve left irrevocably behind. His memoir, Maggie and Me, was a hard-hitting yet rambunctious tale of growing up gay near Motherwell under Thatcher, uneasily aware that the woman who pushed his parents deeper into poverty also taught him that the ruthless ex...

Politics

6 h. ago A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries review – comfortably dumb?

From Shakespeare’s fools to Donald Trump, this exhilarating read considers stupidity in its many formsStupidity, no question, can be just as rich and subtle as its opposite. Three and a half decades on, I still sometimes meditate on what a school friend of mine said in a here’s-a-profound-thought tone of voice: “I’d rather be stupid than happy”.In this clever book, Stuart Jeffries starts out at a double disadvantage, though. First: he has an excellently snappy title but it’s open to question whether stupidity can be said to have a history in any meaningful sense. The quality of stupidity is just, sort of, there; and there’s lots of it. Could you write a history of happiness, or bad luck, or knees? You’d be on firmer ground, as he recognises, historicising the concept of stupidity: a short history, in other words, of “stupidity” – how successive societies and thinkers have defined and responded to reason’s derr-brained secret sharer. As an intellectual historian w...

Politics

7 h. ago Liverpool 'behaving like Sir Alex Ferguson's Man Utd' with bold new transfer strategy

Liverpool's historic transfer spend has represented a huge shift in strategy with Jamie Carragher comparing them to Real Madrid and Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson

Politics

7 h. ago Shock at scale of destruction as Afghanistan earthquake death toll climbs to 900

Rescuers are still battling through heavy rain to reach survivors, with the Taliban authorities appealing for international aid

Events

8 h. ago Horror landslide wipes out entire village killing more than 1,000 people

A landslide wiped out a village in Sudan's western region of Darfur, killing an estimated 1,000 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in the African country's recent history

Events

8 h. ago It was supposed to be restored to its former glory, still nothing has happened

Plans were made to restore the historic shop underneath Manchester Piccadilly railway station in 2021 but the archway remains derelict

Politics

8 h. ago 'I visited Welsh town with cobbled streets, cosy pubs and a castle and made huge mistake'

If you're looking for a UK break packed full of history, ancient buildings, quirky attractions, stunning views, amazing food and very comfortable beds, you need look no further than Conwy in North Wales

Politics

10 h. ago Liverpool sign 10 players and have 17 exits as £449m spent in record

Liverpool have had one of the most expensive transfer windows in football history with Arne Slot’s man adding to their eye-watering business on a thrilling deadline day

Economics

15 h. ago NHS Scotland crisis: 'Record number' of private hospital and clinic admissions in Scotland revealed

Private admissions reached a historic high of 13,195 in January to March.

Events

15 h. ago At least 45,000 sites in Wales could be contaminated with toxic waste, study says

Campaigners say only 82 sites have been fully examined and classified as contaminated, so scale of threat not knownResearch from Friends of the Earth Cymru has found that at least 45,000 sites across Wales could be contaminated with toxic waste but have never been adequately inspected, leaving communities and wildlife vulnerable to a potential environmental crisis.Despite Wales’s extensive industrial history, Tuesday’s publication found that due to a lack of funding and oversight, only 82 sites across the country have ever been fully examined and classified as contaminated, meaning the actual scale of the threat is unknown. Continue reading...

Events

16 h. ago Trump says he’d consider reopening ‘insane asylums’ to help clean up some of the nation’s biggest cities

The President claimed that America’s streets would be safer if more people are forced into long-term psychiatric care — although he admitted it would be ‘massively expensive’

Politics

16 h. ago House of Guinness: First look at historical Netflix drama from Peaky Blinders creator

Netflix has released first-look images at its brand new historical drama House of Guinness, which is written by the creator of the BBC hit series Peaky Blinders

Events