© Doug Mills/The New York Times
© Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Red and amber weather warnings have been issued across the UK as Storm Goretti evolves into a ‘weather bomb’
Network Rail has urged passengers to check for updates before they travel on Friday morning.
Some railway lines have been closed in Wales since Thursday afternoon and all trains were cancelled in Cornwall from 6pm last night, with no replacement road transport due to risky driving conditions.
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© Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Outrage at the US, close ties with Venezuela and mounting domestic challenges have prompted Pedro Sánchez to take a stand
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, rarely utters the words “Donald Trump” in public. Since the US president took office, Sánchez has typically referred to the US administration and its president without explicitly naming him. This was initially interpreted as a calculation designed to avoid personal confrontation, but even without using Trump’s name, Sánchez has managed to deliver harsher criticism of the US president’s aggression than any of his fellow European leaders.
This week, Sánchez did not wait for a joint EU statement to issue judgment on the US’s illegal military intervention to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro: he swiftly joined Latin American countries in condemning it. A few hours later he went even further, saying the operation in Caracas represented “a terrible precedent and a very dangerous one [which] reminds us of past aggressions, and pushes the world toward a future of uncertainty and insecurity, similar to what we already experienced after other invasions driven by the thirst for oil”.
María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
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© Photograph: Denis Doyle/The Guardian
© Photograph: Denis Doyle/The Guardian
© Photograph: Denis Doyle/The Guardian
People say my job must make me morbid, but I think the opposite is true, I truly appreciate life
Not many people can say their happy place is a cemetery, but mine certainly is. I didn’t set out to dig graves for a living – it’s nobody’s childhood dream – but working as a contract gardener for the council in Oxfordshire, I did some work tending cemeteries, and eventually I was offered a job digging graves.
I found it quite daunting at first. I was responsible for digging the plots and being on hand during the funeral service, as well as filling in the grave. It felt like a huge responsibility. I’d recently lost my nan and I’d sit and watch the funerals with a lump in my throat. From the beginning, I treated every grave as though it were for a member of my own family. For the first time, I felt like my job really mattered.
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© Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
© Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
© Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Netherlands expected to join Ireland in prohibiting most consumer fireworks as other EU countries debate crackdown
Window-rattling explosions turned Yara Basta-Bos’s street into a “war zone” last week, but she was spared from the worst of the new year chaos she had seen in the past. A few years ago, the emergency doctor in Amsterdam had to treat a patient clutching their own eyeball after a firework blew it out of its socket.
“It feels like such a waste,” said Basta-Bos, president of the Dutch society of emergency physicians, adding that last week’s revelry resulted in more than 1,200 injuries – one-third of whom ended up in hospital – and two deaths. “Of course, fireworks are nice to look at. But the level of damage it’s causing in the Netherlands right now is just unbelievable.”
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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
When I went to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s to see my Dad it felt like visiting another planet. But beyond the scale and shininess of the country was the feeling of my family finally being together
In the 1980s, the British construction industry was hit hard by recession. At the same time, Saudi Arabia had the opposite problem; lots of money and a desire to build infrastructure, but not enough skilled workers. As a result, thousands of British labourers found it was the only place where they could earn a wage. My dad – freshly out of work with a young family to support – was one of them. We travelled out to see him twice, once to Riyadh and once to Jeddah.
Objectively, the Riyadh trip was better. Dad lived on a worker’s compound, and there was a pool and a restaurant and loads of room to run around. Jeddah, less so – but that’s where this photo was taken. Dad shared a tiny flat on the city’s noisy Palestine Street with one of his colleagues. I caught mumps basically upon landing and (according to the diary I kept at the time) experienced excessive diarrhoea for the duration of the visit. My dad bought me and my brother novelty karate-style pyjamas on arrival, which my brother used as an excuse to beat me up as often as possible. But I was six years old, and I still had the time of my life.
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© Composite: Guardian Design; Daniel Grill/Getty Images; handout
© Composite: Guardian Design; Daniel Grill/Getty Images; handout
© Composite: Guardian Design; Daniel Grill/Getty Images; handout
Cyclists and others voice frustration as transport infrastructure descends into chaos amid increasingly rare cold snap
A week-long winter cold snap that would once have been normal in the Netherlands has caused more than 20,000 flight cancellations, chaos on roads and railways, buildings to partially collapse, and a stream of angry cyclists asking why roads seem better gritted than cycle lanes.
Since Saturday, up to 15cm of snow has fallen across the country, with temperatures of -10C (14F) including wind chill, sparking angry commentary over how some nations manage months of snow but the Netherlands, no longer used to it, appears paralysed.
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© Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
© Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
© Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
Caracas shake-up could intensify violence in Catatumbo in Colombia, an area rich with coca crops, cocaine laboratories and a porous border with Venezuela
Alberto’s eyes shifted nervously. His chin trembled.
His slender hands fumbled with a manila folder containing his family’s documents, which he was waiting to present to staff of the Human Rights Ombudsman in the north-eastern Colombian city of Cúcuta, in the hope of receiving humanitarian aid.
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© Photograph: Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Ahead of her final European tour, the US songwriter discusses her unlikely life as a country star, seeking advice from Pete Seeger – and why retirement isn’t on the cards just yet
When Emmylou Harris was starting out in the late 1960s, she thought country music wasn’t for her. “I hadn’t seen the light,” she says. “I was a folk singer who believed you don’t ever work with drummers as they wreck everything.” It was Gram Parsons, of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, who changed her mind. Their musical partnership was brief – Parsons died after an accidental drug overdose at the Joshua Tree national park in 1973, aged 26 – but his impact on her was profound. “He had one foot in country and one in rock and was conversant in both. It changed my thinking completely.”
Is Harris, legendary doyenne of the country ballad and distinguished recipient of three Country Music Association awards whose guitar was exhibited in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, really saying she hated country? “It can be corny!” she says. “Country music aims straight for the heart and when it misses, it misses really badly. And that’s the stuff that makes the most noise and takes up most space.” She pauses. “But then you hear something like George Jones’s Once You’ve Had the Best, and you hear the simplicity of his phrasing and the earnestness with which he sings. There’s a soulfulness to country music that can elude you if you just look at the big picture.”
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© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock
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