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Israel kills its prime target – but Sinwar’s death seems down to chance, not precise planning

After a year-long hunt, IDF soldiers encountered and killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar without knowing it was him Middle East crisis – live updates In the end, after a year-long, multi-agency manhunt involving the latest technology, Israel’s best special forces and American assistance, Yahya Sinwar appears to have been killed by regular soldiers who had stumbled into him and had no idea whom they had killed. According to the initial reports, they were not there on an assassination operation and had no prior intelligence that they could be in the vicinity of the elusive Hamas leader, architect of the 7 October attacks, the man Israel most wanted to kill. It was only after they took a closer look at his face and found identity documents on him that the troops realised they had got Sinwar . Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/uesFyvB
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Russia wants to ‘create havoc’ if it is behind DHL fires, says air freight expert

Goal seems to be for people ‘to lose confidence in the system’, says Brandon Fried after devices found in Birmingham and Leipzig Russia is aiming to disrupt western confidence if it is proven to be behind an incendiary device plot that led to two parcels catching light at DHL sites in Birmingham and Leipzig in July, an expert has said. The dangerous packages are not thought to have been sophisticated but in both cases appear to have evaded security checks . German authorities warned this week that a plane could have been downed if a device had ignited in mid-air transport. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/zgciEy7

Budget 2024: Rayner and Reeves in standoff over funds for social housebuilding

Exclusive: Housing secretary wants billions more to meet new-homes target but chancellor is set to limit spending Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves are at loggerheads over a major programme of social housebuilding, in the latest sign of cabinet tensions over this month’s budget. Rayner, the housing secretary, has been pushing Reeves, the chancellor, for billions of pounds more for affordable housing, which she argues will be needed to hit Labour’s target of building 1.5m new homes across five years. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/81dhRrE

‘A triumph’: London’s £19bn Elizabeth line is named best new architecture in Britain

With its futuristic panels, airy tunnels and elegantly unified design, the 73-mile addition to the tube is a worthy winner of the prestigious Stirling prize – and puts the rest of the creaking, sooty network to shame With the longest platforms, the biggest tunnels and the fastest trains on the entire London underground, the Elizabeth line boasts a dizzying list of superlatives, carrying more people a day than any other train line in the country. It is now deemed to have the best design, too – being named as the winner of the 2024 RIBA Stirling prize for the finest architecture in the UK. The competition was stiff : from the National Portrait Gallery in London to the renovation of the Park Hill estate in Sheffield, from a Dorset dairy farm conversion to a street of social housing in Hackney and the 67-acre regeneration of King’s Cross. The Lizzie line is a worthy winner, providing a dazzling demonstration that, for all chaos surrounding HS2 , Britain is still capable of pulling off ga

Skeleton crew: California driver nabbed for using carpool lane with plastic effigy

Highway patrol says carpool lanes are for ridesharing for living humans, not lifeless bony impostors Drivers looking to beat California’s endless traffic can use designated carpool lanes, provided they have others in their car. But there’s one pesky requirement: those other people have to be alive. That was not the case for a driver stopped this weekend near San Jose for using a fake companion , police say. Riding in the passenger seat was a plastic skeleton. In an apparent effort to add to the illusion, the skeleton was wearing a mask with a giant mouth, reminiscent of the Scream films. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/LkZYEKu

Joy review – warm and intensely English portrayal of the birth of IVF

London film festival Bill Nighy, James Norton and Thomasin McKenzie form the unlikely trio who doggedly, quietly and courageously made the discovery that would change lives around the world There is sympathy, warmth and directness – though perhaps not much in the way of explicit joy – in this intensely English true story that made headlines and changed lives around the world. Screenwriters Jack Thorne, Emma Gordon and Rachel Mason, and director Ben Taylor, dramatise the heartache and strain and triumph that led to the first ever birth of what the press with a mixture of hostility and awe called “a test-tube baby” – that is, a baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation – on 25 July 1978: a little girl called Louise Brown (middle name Joy). Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/mrtA5uI

Trump vows to impose tariffs as experts warn of price hikes and angry allies

In often-combative conversation with Bloomberg editor in Chicago, Trump says ‘tariff’ is his favorite word Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to levy tariffs on all imports in a bid to boost American manufacturing, a proposal that economists say would probably mean higher prices for consumers while angering US allies. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariffs’,” Trump said in an often-combative conversation with John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday. “It’s my favorite word.” Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/QVN61TX