7 h. ago International criminals set up an industrial drugs farm at a small Welsh smallholding

Police also seized a "zombie knife" and a crossbow from the property.

Events

3 d. ago On a Welsh industrial estate, in a grey metal building, is a hidden bakery which instantly sells out of the best pastries you'll ever eat

It's run by the former Bake Off star Michael Coggan

Politics

8 d. ago Dig! XX review – amazing film of battling 90s psych rockers revisited two decades on

Rereleased documentary study of the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre is an epic story of success and failureAfter 20 years, Ondi Timoner has rereleased her riveting and colossal documentary study of two psych rock bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and their epic dual story of success and failure. There is about 40 minutes of extra material and a present-day coda that reveals, among other things, that each band has a member who now sells real estate. That ending, brutally and suddenly visiting grey-haired middle age on these gorgeous rock’n’roll exquisites, reminded me of the Fellini-esque dream opening to Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories in which two trains, one carrying life’s winners and the other with hapless losers, wind up at the same dusty rubbish heap.Dig! XX, which took years to shoot, is alternately narrated by the Warhols’ frontman, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, and the BJM’s relentlessly goofy tambourine player, Joel Gion, and it shows the ...

Events

1 week ago Huge increase in visitor numbers at Dumfries and Galloway attraction

Threave Garden and Estate welcomed more than 120,000 people last year, with Grey Mare's Tail and Caerlaverock Castle also proving popular.

Politics

3 w. ago As Jews celebrate Purim, let us end the slaughter in Gaza committed in our name | Peter Beinart

Our refusal to reckon with the dark side of Purim reflects a refusal to reckon with the dark side of ourselvesLater this month, on the holiday of Purim, Jewish people will dress in silly costumes, eat triangular pastries, and listen to an ancient story about attempted genocide. What we notice, and don’t notice, about that story says a lot about what we notice, and don’t notice, in Israel and Palestine.The tale comes from the book of Esther. It begins with a dissolute Persian king. He hosts a banquet, gets drunk, orders his queen to “display her beauty” to the revelers, and, when she refuses, banishes her from the throne. As her replacement he chooses Esther, a beautiful young maiden who, unbeknownst to him, is a Jew. Then he makes a calamitous personnel decision: he selects Haman, a pathological Jew-hater, to be his right-hand man. The stage is now set for an epic clash. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The big picture: Sebastián Bruno brings an outsider’s eye to a wedding in Cardiff

The Argentine photographer spent more than a decade living in Wales and capturing community life there, including one bride’s big dayIsolate the three figures in the middle of this photograph by Sebastián Bruno and it could be the centre spread of a wedding magazine: the bride in a tiara clutching an effusion of white flowers, her veil extending out of shot; the two glamorous bridesmaids next to her in high heels, one resting a supportive hand on the bride’s left shoulder. But then restore the context – the modest front gardens, the satellite dishes and telephone wires – and we’re in a housing estate in Cardiff in summer 2020 under a glowering grey sky. To the side a flower girl, finger in mouth, fixes the photographer (whose shadow we glimpse at the bottom alongside that of his flash) with an interrogative scowl.Bruno had been living in Wales for a decade at this point but he shoots the scene – and others in his wonderful series Ta-ra – with an outsider’s eye, picking out heightene...

Politics

4 w. ago ‘Trump doesn’t understand who the aggressor is’: fatigue and anger in Odesa

Russian attacks on Ukrainian city that was initially spared worst have increased since Washington-Moscow detenteRussia-Ukraine war – latest news updatesOlena Palash heard a loud buzzing above her flat in the Ukrainian port of Odesa. It was 11pm. First one drone, and another, then more. Soon afterwards, one of the Shaheeds crashed into the children’s clinic where she works. An explosion shredded the building’s facade. The metal covering of a car park was remade into a spaghetti-like jumble. Another drone smashed into a nearby kindergarten.The attack on 18 February knocked out a substation and plunged some of the city into darkness. Four people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl, and 80,000 were left without heat. Russia’s air war in the skies above Ukraine is nothing new. But since negotiations began between the US and Russia – talks from which Kyiv has been excluded – the raids have got dramatically worse. Continue reading...

Politics