Author: The Guardian

A woman who claims she was raped at knifepoint by the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has told a court she will never forget her attacker’s eye which “pierced my skull”.Christian Brückner is accused of five sexual assaults on women aged 10 to 80 in Portugal between 2000 and 2017, including the rape of 40-year-old Hazel Behan in June 2004. Giving evidence at the trial, Hazel Behan told the court: “I believe this man is the man who attacked me.”She sat just a few meters away from Bruckner, who looked on expressionlessly. Behan, an executive from Ireland and mother…

Scientists have discovered a long-buried branch of the Nile River that once flowed alongside more than 30 pyramids in Egypt, potentially solving the mystery of how ancient Egyptians transported the massive stone blocks to build the monuments.The 40-mile-long (64km) river branch, which ran by the Giza pyramid complex among other wonders, was hidden under desert and farmland for millennia, according to a study revealing the find on Thursday.The existence of the river would explain why the 31 pyramids were built in a chain along a now inhospitable desert strip in the Nile valley between 4,700 and 3,700 years ago.The strip…

Lando Norris returns to racing after winning his first Formula 1 race, confident he and his McLaren team have what it takes to start challenging Max Verstappen for the world title title.Norris took his maiden F1 win on his 110th attempt at the final round in Miami, driving a car that had been racing even before the world champion’s Red Bull was damaged after McLaren’s in-race upgrades. The fastest car on the road.In the build-up to this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, Norris has been buoyed by the car’s performance and the team’s progress and feels he has…

It was September 1991 in New York and the grand finale of Look of the Year, a prestigious modeling contest that had helped launch the careers of supermodels Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen.The celebrity magician David Copperfield, one of the judges, watched from the front row as 58 contestants paraded across the runway in their branded hot pink and sorbet yellow swimsuits. Nearly all the contestants were teenagers; some were as young as 14.Today, more than three decades later, five former contestants say that they were subjected to behavior by Copperfield that they now regard as inappropriate or worse. The…

Julian Alaphilippe’s early breakthrough paid off as the Soudal Quick-Step rider bravely fended off his pursuers to win stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia.There are enough climbs in the 193 kilometers from Martinsicuro to Fano on the Adriatic coast to offer those willing to risk an attack and prevent the sprinters from claiming another stage victory Chances are, Alaphilippe’s strategy paid off. The Frenchman joined a breakout group of 10 riders for the 130km race, but then set off alongside Polti Kometa’s Mirco Maestri, with the pair blocking the line behind them A swarm of pursuers.Maestri ran out of steam…

I am getting married next year. For various reasons, including his treatment of me and my siblings, I do not want my father at my wedding. If he is there he will ruin the day by shouting at me for some perceived transgression. He holds grudges like no one else I’ve ever met and he doesn’t accept who I am. He refuses to acknowledge I am disabled and thinks I’m making it all up for attention. He has not met my fiance and I have no intention of introducing them.The difficulty is that my mother and brother live with him.…

Did you know that, if things had gone differently, the Pompidou Centre could have been an egg? In the 1969 competition for the Paris art centre – ultimately won by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, with their inside-out symphony of pipework – a radical French architect called André Bruyère submitted a proposal for a gigantic ovoid tower. His bulbous building would have risen 100 metres above the city’s streets, clad in shimmering scales of alabaster, glass and concrete, its walls swelling out in a curvaceous riposte to the tyranny of the straight line.“Time,” Bruyère declared, “instead of being linear, like…

Mariska Iurevicz’s mother has been crying a lot recently. “She is always asking when I’ll be home”, the 22-year-old says. “I think we are feeling the same. We are nervous and some of us feeling unsafe. But we are very strong. We will do everything to change the situation.”Iurevicz, a philosophy student at the TSU State University in Tbilsi, the capital of Georgia, belongs to one of a myriad of protest groups sprouting out of universities and schools that have been driving the mass protests against the “foreign agents” law being introduced in the east European country.They have been horrified…

Clive, 65, LondonOccupation Part-time advisory teacherVoting record A natural Labour supporter, though not during the Blair years. Describes himself as “broadly socialist with some anarchist leanings”Amuse bouche Clive is a spoken-word artist and appears at open-mic events. “I like the immediacy of performing”Jayne, 62, WorcestershireOccupation Retired college lecturerVoting record Always LabourAmuse bouche After retiring, Jayne retrained as a dog groomer. She has converted her shed into a grooming parlour. “I love it, just me and the dogs”For startersClive It was a really swanky restaurant with a sommelier who matched the wines with each course. Everything was beautiful, it almost felt…

Fifteen questions await you on topical news, current affairs and various other things that popped into the quizmaster’s mind for some reason. There are no prizes, but you can tell us how you got on in the comments, where you can score bonus points by being funny and spotting references to the children’s teatime favourite Doctor Who, and lose points for unnecessary quibbling over questions or answers. Enjoy!The Thursday quiz, No 1601.An interactive webcam portal installed as a street sculpture by the Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys has enabled real-time silliness between which two cities?Reveal2.Donald Trump praised which fictional serial killer…