Judge tosses lawsuit from ex-NYPD commissioner accusing department of 'systemic corruption'












The actor, comedian and raconteur, who would have turned 100 on Sunday, could play humble or haughty, cheeky or Chekhov – but always stole the show
When standup comic Tom Allen received Attitude magazine’s comedy award last year, he used his acceptance speech to salute the subversive wits who paved the way for freedoms now enjoyed by queer people in Britain. Joining Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward on the list was an actor and raconteur singled out by Allen as “a big hero of mine”, and feted by everyone from Orson Welles to Judy Garland, Maggie Smith to Morrissey.
“I wanted to mention Kenneth Williams because he was so profound,” Allen tells me. “And yet, because he was also funny, that profundity hasn’t been acknowledged. As a child, I connected with his outsiderness. Rather than trying to fit in, he went in the opposite direction. Not only did he not apologise for being different, but he was queer in every sense, truly at odds with the world in which he found himself.”
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© Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images

© Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images

© Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images
Joint patrols are being mounted to protect undersea cables from Russian sabotage: localised cooperation is our best hope for now
Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council thinktank
When European countries in the Baltic Sea region joined Nato for protection against Russia, they were not anticipating their most powerful Nato ally would be the one threatening to seize territory from them. The shock of the Greenland crisis may have faded from the headlines, but Donald Trump’s US has also suggested it may decide not to defend Europe. And Russia continues to be a nuisance in the Baltic Sea.
Luckily, the vulnerable Baltic nations have launched an impressive string of initiatives to keep their mini-ocean safe. As the US sheds responsibility for Europe’s defence, these efforts could provide a model for the future of Nato itself.
Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council thinktank. She is the author of Goodbye, Globalization: The Return of a Divided World and The Defender’s Dilemma: Identifying and Deterring Gray-Zone Aggression
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© Photograph: Johan Nilsson/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Johan Nilsson/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Johan Nilsson/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli police raid compound, arrest staff and curb Muslims’ access as Ramadan begins
A six-decade agreement governing Muslim and Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site has “collapsed” under pressure from Jewish extremists backed by the Israeli government, experts have warned.
A series of arrests of Muslim caretaker staff, bans on access for hundreds of Muslims, and escalating incursions by radical Jewish groups culminated this week in the arrest of the imam of al-Aqsa mosque and an Israeli police raid during evening prayers on the first night of Ramadan.
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© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images
Government announces tougher measures to tackle unlicensed sites as ‘prolific waste criminal’ is ordered to pay £1.4m
A new 33-strong drone unit is being deployed to investigate the scourge of illegal waste dumping across England, the government has announced.
The improvements to the investigation of illegal waste dumping – which costs the UK economy £1bn a year – come as the ringleader of a major waste crime gang was ordered to pay £1.4m after being convicted at Birmingham crown court.
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© Photograph: Environment Agency

© Photograph: Environment Agency

© Photograph: Environment Agency
I cut small trees around Offa’s Dyke, then shape the wood by hand
I never wanted to be part of an unsustainable society. I’ve always tried to live as peaceful a life as I can, outside the big cities. Now I am the last person left in England making clogs by hand. I spend most days in my studio in Kington, Herefordshire, carving green sycamore wood that I collect myself, hand-dyeing the leather and making sure the soles are as near perfect a match to someone’s foot as possible. I don’t think you can have a more peaceful life than that.
I grew up in Ceredigion, surrounded by sheep. There were no jobs in the area and in 1976 I had to go on benefits. I developed extreme anxiety after breaking up with my first girlfriend. Convent schooling and boys’ boarding schools weren’t the best places to learn to develop relationships and I needed to find something therapeutic to do.
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© Photograph: Andy Pilsbury/The Guardian

© Photograph: Andy Pilsbury/The Guardian

© Photograph: Andy Pilsbury/The Guardian
















































































Long-serving socialist former leader Evo Morales has reappeared in his political stronghold after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence
Bolivia’s long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared on Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumours he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela’s ex-president Nicolás Maduro.
The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales’ fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what’s happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges, and how vulnerable it is to fears about US president Donald Trump’s potential future foreign escapades.
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© Photograph: Patricia Pinto/Reuters

© Photograph: Patricia Pinto/Reuters

© Photograph: Patricia Pinto/Reuters




The president’s announcement came after predecessor Barack Obama went viral last week for saying aliens are ‘real’
Donald Trump has announced he is directing the defense department and other agencies to release whatever files they have on the search for alien life.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump said that he will ask the defense secretary and others “to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
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© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters


