Satirical news outlet purchases media platform run by Alex Jones at a court-ordered auction
The satirical news outlet The Onion has purchased Infowars, the rightwing media platform run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, at a court-ordered auction.
Counter-terrorism police chief tells of difficulty of search for vessel with poison after attack on Sergei Skripal
Hunting for the container of nerve agent used in the attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was like “searching for a needle in a haystack”, a counter-terrorism forensics chief has said.
Keith Asman, the head of forensics and digital investigations for the police’s south-east region counter-terrorism unit, told the inquiry into the Wiltshire poisonings that officers combed the area around Skripal’s house for a small container of novichok and for discarded protective clothing the attackers may have used.
This is an extract from our weekly Feast newsletter, written by Yotam, Meera Sodha, Rachel Roddy, Felicity Cloake and others. Sign up here to get it free to your inbox every Thursday.
Sometimes, when friends come over for dinner, I start planning by picking out the serving plates. Strange as that may sound, this visual cue often sets the rest in motion: a wide ceramic platter for grilled lamb chops with ezme, yoghurt and cumin salt, say, or for a generous mound of lentils and chickpeas dotted with nuts and barberries. A splash of green here, a pop of orange there, maybe a touch of purple for contrast …
The pop veteran answers your questions about the California ska scene in the 90s, making it big with No Doubt and finding love again with the country star Blake Shelton
Did you think Don’t Speak would become such a huge hit?Troy_McClure
I absolutely had no idea. It didn’t even represent what we were doing, because No Doubt were such an uptempo, live-energy band. Even the guitar solo has no business being in that song. The original version was written by my brother [Eric, keyboards], who lived at my grandparents’ house; after they passed away, it became the band house. He’d stay up all night eating peanut butter sandwiches, drinking milk and smoking cigarettes and go: “Oh, I wrote this last night.”
Then I ended up rewriting the lyrics and changing the whole song because Tony [Kanal, bass] broke up with me. It’s crazy, but that song really is the heartbeat of who I am and changed everything. After it came out, we were driving through Israel and these guards came up to the van with guns, which I’d never seen anywhere before. One of them looked in the van and started singing Don’t Speak to me. That soon became normal.
In interview 007 producer Barbara Broccoli says actor who takes on role will offer ‘something new and different’
The next actor taking on James Bond will be in his 30s and could be of any race, according to producer Barbara Broccoli.
In a new interview with the Associated Press, Broccoli has teased what we might be able to expect from the much-anticipated reveal of the next 007. The article states: “It will be a man. He’ll likely be in his 30s. Whiteness is not a given.”
Taken at 28,000kmh and costing billions of dollars, the first ever photos taken by astronauts are on show at Paris Photo. For Nasa print dealer Daniel Blau, they are proof that nothing is impossible when nations collaborate
It was one of history’s monumental moments – but if John Glenn hadn’t popped into the supermarket to pick up a Contax camera and a roll of 35mm film on his way to board the Friendship 7, there may have been no visual document of it. The photographs the American astronaut took from the window of his capsule as he orbited Earth on 20 February 1962 gave an unprecedented testimony of the Mercury Project’s first orbital mission. The Soviet Union might have beaten the Americans in the race to human spaceflight – but the Americans had now shot the first galactic colour photographs.
The pictures are also, German gallerist Daniel Blau points out, “the most expensive photographs ever taken. Billions of dollars were spent to get them.” Blau exhibited an original print of Glenn’s first picture taken in space at this year’s Paris Photo, alongside a cache of rare Nasa photographic prints – many of them never publicly seen before, most of them by unknown scientists and astronauts.
People who use abbreviations were less likely to receive responses, analysis by psychologists found
Reducing your texts to a flurry of abbreviations could have unintended consequences, according to researchers who found that wordless exchanges were more likely to convey “idrc” than “ily”.
Psychologists analysed messages from more than 5,000 people across eight studies and found that those who used abbreviations were deemed less sincere and were less likely to receive responses as a result.
The actor who stars in Ridley Scott’s sequel said: ‘I kissed a guy full on the lips – I guess they weren’t ready for that yet’
Denzel Washington has speculated that anxiety was behind the decision to cut a same-sex kiss from Gladiator II.
Washington, whose performance as ruthless power broker Macrinus in Ridley Scott’s sequel has picked up considerable awards buzz, told Variety: “I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out, they cut it, I think they got chicken.”
Ranieri to take role as adviser to owners at end of season
He becomes Roma’s fourth head coach of the year
Claudio Ranieri has come out of retirement at the age of 73 to take charge of Roma until the end of the season, the Serie A club have announced, days after sacking the Croatian Ivan Juric.
Ranieri is Roma’s third coach of the season and this is his third time coaching his home-town club, having guided the Giallorossi from 2009-11 and in 2019. He began his playing career with Roma.
Celebrated authors discuss the somewhat connected stories of their shared surname at literary event in Rio
Born more than 5,500 miles apart, the Booker prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, 65, and Brazil’s most celebrated living Black author, Conceição Evaristo, 77, share the same surname, though they are – as far as is known – unrelated.
But their surnames’ stories are somewhat connected, and shed light on aspects of the history of Brazil, the country that received the largest number of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade.
Company tells shareholders it expects ‘double-digit percentage growth’ in 2026 and 2027
Walt Disney is trying to roll the credits on its years-long battle to reassure Wall Street and Hollywood that it can dominate a new era of entertainment.
The Magic Kingdom, which rarely issues guidance on future profits, told shareholders it expects an acceleration over the coming years – with “double-digit percentage growth” in adjusted earnings in 2026 and 2027.
Turkish national accused of supplying engines and boats to cross-Channel smugglers in Belgium and northern France
A suspected major supplier of small boats used by people smugglers to transport asylum seekers across the Channel has been arrested in Amsterdam, officials said.
A 44-year-old Turkish national was arrested on Wednesday after arriving at Schiphol airport, the European agency Eurojust said on Tuesday, adding that the suspect was due to be extradited to Belgium to face charges of being involved in human trafficking as part of a criminal organisation.
Spain great starts first major venture since retirement
Club are currently seventh in 12-team division
Andrés Iniesta has become co-owner of the Danish third-tier club Helsingør in the Spain legend’s first major off-field venture since retirement.
Helsingør announced that NSN, the sports management and consulting company jointly founded by Iniesta, would take control alongside the Swiss investment group Stoneweg. They are seventh in their 12-team division, to which they were relegated last season. NSN had been working with the club on a consultancy basis to, according to the firm’s website, “consolidate its position and give the opportunity to worldwide talents to come and play in Europe”.
Signs of resistance to artemisinin in tenth of children with severe malaria similar to situation in Asia, say researchers
Researchers have found “troubling” evidence for the first time that a lifesaving malaria drug is becoming less effective in young African children with serious infections.
A study of children being treated in hospital for malaria in Uganda, presented at a major conference on Thursday, found signs of resistance to artemisinin in one patient in 10.
Business moguls and world leaders are desperate to weasel into Trump’s good books. It’s humiliating but the payday is worth it
Let the humiliation Olympics begin. As Donald Trump readies himself for his revenge tour, world leaders and business moguls are falling over themselves to show the incoming president how much they admire him. Even if it means making an embarrassment of themselves in the process.
While it’s only natural for the rich and powerful to try to ingratiate themselves with the incoming president of the United States, the extent to which people are lining up to kiss the ring is remarkable. This isn’t just diplomacy as usual: it speaks to Trump’s unapologetically transactional politics. He has made it very clear that loyalty will be richly rewarded and promised to ruthlessly pursue his enemies. As a result, we appear to have entered into a golden age of brown-nosing.
After his first day of daycare, my long, stinky son Basil came home with a report card that said he’d been well-behaved but also needed to work on “appropriate play”. As a parent, I decided to take this constructive criticism normally.
Initially I was just relieved that Basil hadn’t murdered one of the other attenders of the daycare, which has put me in the weird position of having a lot of empathy for Dexter’s dad.
PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, smartphones (via Netflix); Color Gray Games/Playstack Solving these cases is extremely satisfying, but it’s the strangeness that makes the game so memorable
A ghoulish scene: a shadowy figure has just shoved someone into a high-voltage circuit box. The victim is stuck at the moment of death, sparks flying as their body convulses; downstairs, everyone is frozen in surprise at the moment the lights went off. Scrutinising this scene, you must determine who everyone is, where they are, why they are there, and of course, who committed this murder. You examine faces and objects, go through everyone’s pockets to see what they have on them, read notes and signs and letters for clues. Eventually you piece it together, filling in a report with missing words that explains exactly who, what, when, where and why.
Rise of the Golden Idol is an alternate-reality 1970s detective game where each individual scene, once solved, tells you something about a bigger mystery. It’s a sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol, set 300 years after that game’s age-of-exploration mystery, but following the trail of that same cursed object. Some of these scenes are relatively innocuous, even funny, like the drive-in cinema where an unexpected fire sends the cosplaying customers scrambling for the exit. Others are gruesome: in the opening case, a strangling plays out on an infinite loop like an Instagram boomerang story.
The brains behind cult Sydney cake shop Flour and Stone shares her tips for better home baking
Anyone can bake. I really mean that! But sometimes a baking failure can be disheartening – there’s no sinking feeling like a sunken cake.
When it comes to baking, practise does eventually make perfect. There are some common baking mishaps that, like life, just happen. Here are some tips to help you avoid some more common catastrophes and ensure you become a better baker.
The raising agent has expired. If the cake has a raising agent, such as baking powder, this needs to be incorporated into the cake batter swiftly and then the cake placed into the oven immediately. Baking powder is activated the minute it comes into contact with liquid and so the longer it sits in the cake tin before baking, the higher the chances of its “raising powers” expiring.
The cake did not start baking at a high enough temperature. A cake made with flour and raising agent (as above) needs a higher temperature when it first goes into the oven to “lift” the crumb. Make sure to preheat your oven well in advance so that once the cake goes in, it begins cooking and takes full advantage of the baking powder’s power.
Whatever the recipe, preheat the oven to 10C higher than instructed. Once you open the door the oven will lose heat, the cake will take longer to rise, and the aforementioned raising agent will become exhausted and lose the will to live. When the cake is in, shut the door and lower the heat to the prescribed recipe temperature.
The butter wasn’t soft enough. When I say soft, I mean like the texture of dollop cream, not simply at room temperature. There are two reasons you need sufficiently soft butter: to allow any sugar to meld properly with the butter and create a fluffy base, and to encourage the eggs to emulsify with the butter more easily. Eggs will struggle to combine with butter that is too firm.
The eggs weren’t at room temperature. Eggs don’t like to be cold when mingling with butter. Pull them out of the fridge the night before to allow them to come up to room temperature.
You tried to add whole eggs to the butter. Give the eggs a little whisk with a fork to break them up and this will assist their union with the butter.
I think a lot of cake recipes have too much flour in them. Cut the flour quantity with a proportion of nut meal to impart moisture and lower the gluten (ultimately, gluten gives the cake its dryness).
The cake batter has curdled as you’re making it (see above). A curdled cake will need to cook for longer because the structure of the batter is broken. This usually results in a dry cake.
The cake doesn’t have enough fat. Depending on the cake you’re making, increase the fat – oil, milk or butter – already in the recipe. Start with a modest increase – about 10%. This will lighten the cake and impart more moisture that then translates to steam.
A faulty lithium-ion battery in an e-scooter likely caused an intense garage and house fire in Sydney’s south on Tuesday, fire investigators have found, the latest in a spate of incidents involving lithium-ion batteries.
In early November, a fire in an apartment in New Farm in inner-city Brisbane is also believed by authorities to have been sparked by an e-scooter battery. In March, batteries resulted in four separate fires in a single day in New South Wales.
Ben & Jerry’s has launched legal action against Unilever, accusing its parent company of trying to block the ice-cream brand from making public statements supporting Palestinian refugees in the conflict in Gaza.
The lawsuit also claims that Unilever has threatened to dismantle its board and sue directors over the issue.
Pact hailed as EU migration breakthrough in tatters after judges rule asylum seekers must be transferred to Italy
A multimillion-dollar migration deal between Italy and Albania aimed at curbing arrivals was presented by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, as a new model for how to establish processing and detention centres for asylum seekers outside the EU.
The facilities in Albania were supposed to receive up to 3,000 men intercepted in international waters while crossing from Africa to Europe. But it seems neither von der Leyen nor Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, had taken existing law into account.
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