Monza (Italy) (AFP) – The sight of the hefty back tyre of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Formula One car crashing down towards the helmet of Lewis Hamilton at the Italian Grand Prix made for sickening viewing. The seven-time world champion was beached in his Mercedes, but ultimately saved by his halo, a cockpit head protection system introduced in March 2018.
Glasgow (AFP) – Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pushes the devolved country’s case for independence, saying Brexit and other hardline policies by the UK government have been a direct hit on Scotland’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Amsterdam (AFP) – Half a century after a small group of radicals created Greenpeace, the head of the environmental organisation warns that it still has far to go on the climate crisis before it can truly celebrate. Created on September 15, 1971 when a boat of the same name tried to stop a US nuclear test, Greenpeace has become one of the world’s best known action groups with its headline-grabbing stunts.
London (AFP) – Members of Emma Raducanu’s former tennis club in south London, Parklangley Club, gathered on Saturday night in raucous fashion to cheer the 18-year-old on to victory in the US Open final in New York.
Rouen (France) (AFP) – The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announces plans to run for president in next year’s election, joining a growing list of challengers to centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron. Hidalgo was the first woman to be elected mayor of Paris and she now hopes to become France’s first female president. Polls currently show Hidalgo would garner only seven to nine percent in the first round of voting for president in April if picked to represent the Socialists.
Berlin (AFP) – In a Berlin church, the “Classic meets fetish” evening regularly brings together about a hundred members of the queer community, all dressed in leather, to listen to classical music.
La Canada Flintridge (United States) (AFP) – NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has collected its first two rock samples, both slightly wider than a pencil in diameter and about six centimeters long, and now stored in sealed tubes in the rover’s interior. NASA is hoping to return the samples to Earth for in depth lab analysis in a joint mission with the European Space Agency sometime in the 2030s.
Beijing (AFP) – Models wearing outfits inspired by healthcare professionals walk down the runway as part of a show during the China Fashion Week in Beijing. The ‘Heroes in Harm’s Way’ collection is designed by the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and Dishang Group.
Washington (AFP) – US President Joe Biden urges Americans to show unity, “our greatest strength,” in a pre-recorded video posted on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. Biden also says Americans must fight “the darker forces of human nature” unleashed after the September 11, 2001 attacks: “Fear and anger, resentment and violence against Muslim Americans.”
Kabul (AFP) – Afghan pop star Aryana Saeed, an indefatigable women’s rights activist, made only one request of her fiance before heading to Kabul airport when the Taliban took over the city: “just shoot me in the head but don’t let them take me away alive”.
Washington (AFP) – US President Joe Biden says a “distinct minority of Americans” are to blame for preventing the United States from overcoming the pandemic during a speech from the White House on the nation’s fight against the Covid-19 Delta variant. He says he will mandate companies with 100 or more employees to vaccinate all workers or administer weekly Covid-19 tests in a new effort to defeat the surging Delta virus.
Los Angeles (AFP) – The education board for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second biggest in the US, votes that children aged 12 or over who attend public schools in the city will have to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by the start of next year. This is the first such requirement by a major education board in the US.
