
As Russia hits another ammunition warehouse, killing at least 38, locals put blame on poorly placed depots
It is a day and a half since a Russian jet-powered drone smashed into an ammunition dump in Myla, a village 15 miles outside central Kyiv. Volodymyr, 61, a security guard, leads visitors from his family’s badly damaged home, its roof blown off, back windows shattered, through the garden towards the impact site 300 metres away.
The garden, like so many in Ukraine’s villages and suburbs, is a sizeable allotment. But today the greenhouse is shattered, a vegetable patch is blackened and crisp underfoot. Several metres of grapevine have been destroyed. Even so, Volodymyr finds two surviving bunches to hand to the Guardian.
Continue reading...More than two dozen teenagers stuck in the Spanish territory of Ceuta shared their reasons for joining the treacherous mass crossing in July
For Fatin, one of the teenage girls now living in limbo in a makeshift camp in the Spanish city of Ceuta, the decision to leave her home in Morocco began to form when she had to give up school.
She wanted to continue studying, she says, but at home she was expected to take responsibility for the housework instead. As classes and learning gave way to domestic chores, the future she had imagined for herself began to feel increasingly distant.
Continue reading...Studies have found that anti-inflammatory drugs can improve your mood. But what does that mean for conditions such as depression and anxiety?
Inflammation is the immune system’s response to injury or infection. If you cut yourself and the area becomes red and swollen, that’s inflammation: immune cells are rushing to fight germs and repair tissue.
But inflammation can also occur in the body during illnesses, and a low level of inflammation can arise from obesity or ageing. “A marker of that inflammation tends to be elevated cytokines in people’s blood,” says Prof Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London and author of Immune Health: A Myth-Busting Guide. “They’re the molecules immune cells use to communicate with each other.”
Continue reading...Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie are back trying to stop a third world war in the Arctic. There’s plenty of action – but it’s hard to root for heroes whose biggest personality traits are ‘being nice’ and ‘wears good glasses’
Like many a police procedural, Vigil always begins with a cold open. This time round, however, it’s absolutely freezing. We are, as per, thrown headlong into a niche and tangentially Scottish military world where a murder has occurred. The first series took place on board a nuclear submarine (the show is, confusingly, still named after the vessel), while the second split the action between an army airfield in Scotland and the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Wudyan.
For its third outing, we find ourselves in the (real) Arctic region of Svalbard. The area is supposedly demilitarised, but four British special forces agents are working undercover at a research centre, and tonight their mission is to extract a Chinese scientist who has made a discovery that could either save or destroy the world. En route, they’re ambushed by Russians who want whatever world-saving-or-destroying stuff she’s got. The scientist escapes – but one of the Brits later turns up dead in a Russian enclave.
Continue reading...Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting the decision – and they’re only getting more passionate
Twenty years ago, Pluto got demoted. After a vote by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in August 2006, Pluto was relegated from major planet to dwarf planet status. Our solar system dropped from nine planets to eight. At the time, many scientists were unhappy with the decision. Two decades on, the debate is, if anything, even more polarised.
“The definition of a planet they created, you can’t use it at all,” says Philip Metzger, the director of the Stephen W Hawking Centre for Microgravity Research and Education at the University of Central Florida. “It makes the definition of a planet completely non-useful in science.”
Continue reading...Swinton takes a dead man’s identity, Glasgow’s heir to Billy Connolly heads on tour and Gillian Anderson, Keira Knightley and Natalia Osipova all hit the stage
• See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here
Concern among staff that fragile artwork’s scarce ‘light hours’ given to someone with no known interest in museum
The British Museum privately hosted the Donald Trump-supporting tech billionaire Peter Thiel in the exhibition space of the Bayeux tapestry earlier this month, the Guardian understands.
The museum’s director of development, Charlotte Appleyard, hosted the PayPal founder at a VIP viewing of the tapestry, which is yet to open to the public, on 18 August.
Continue reading...Workers thought to be trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of about half a dozen hydropower projects in Nepal following devastating flash floods
Rescue teams are working to reach more than 900 people thought to be trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of half a dozen hydropower projects in Nepal following the devastating flash floods, the country’s disaster management authority said on Monday.
The death toll from the unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris that crashed through valleys of Nepal on Wednesday last week has now risen to 903 people, with 16 more dead reported on the Tibet side of the border. More than 4,000 are missing in Nepal, with another 500 in Tibet.
Continue reading...Nationwide research also shows average 14% premium for housing in national landscapes of England and Wales
Housebuyers are paying a premium of almost a quarter to own a property located within a UK national park, with the New Forest the most expensive national park to live in, according to Britain’s biggest building society.
Nationwide found that a property located within a national park cost 24% more on average than a similar property elsewhere, while buyers were also stumping up a 6% premium for homes within three miles of a national park.
Continue reading...US says it attacked Larak Island to prevent launch of sea mines, prompting reprisals against airbases used by US forces, with tanker fire also reported in strait
Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on airbases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates after the US attacked Iranian rocket launchers in the strait of Hormuz, the first such hostilities in a month.
Hours later, Iranian state TV later reported that a supertanker had caught fire after hitting two naval mines while attempting to pass through the southern side of the strait. It did not identify the vessel or provide information about its crew.
Continue reading...