I always thought this picture would make a funny WH39K edit with Caiaphas Cain after I started the Cain series.
Turns out the original pic is from a ********* book series called Flashman. Were the protagonist is a coward in the army, and whenever he gets scared his face gets red, making people think he’s pissed off, leading so shenanigans.
And so it turns out… like damn. You ever pick up a psychic vibe from of art and think “yeah these are the same character”
I know probably not many will see this but I’ve got no one else to share this with so I’m sharing it with all of you instead. After writing for what feels like a really long time, I’ve finally reached 100,000 words, so close to the end now. I’ve gone from doing pretty much nothing when I wake up, to writing nearly every day and actually having some fun.
MUNICH (AP) — The head brewmaster for Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, has a secret: He really likes alcohol-free beer.
Even though he’s quick to say he obviously enjoys real beer more, Tobias Zollo says he savors alcohol-free beer when he’s working or eating lunch. It has the same taste but fewer calories than a soft drink, he said, thanks to the brewery’s process of evaporating the alcohol.
“You can’t drink beer every day — unfortunately,” he joked last week at the Bavarian state brewery in the German town of Freising, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Munich.
Zollo isn’t alone in his appreciation for the sober beverage. Alcohol-free beer has been gaining popularity in recent years as beer consumption shrinks.
AP correspondent Shelley Adler reports alcohol-free beer is gaining in popularity, even at Oktoberfest.
At Weihenstephan, which was founded as a brewery in 1040 by Benedictine monks, non-alcoholic wheat beer and lager now make up 10% of the volume. The increase over the last few years, since they started making alcohol-free drinks in the 1990s, mirrors the statistics for the rest of Germany’s beer industry.
“The people are unfortunately — I have to say that as a brewer — unfortunately drinking less beer,” Zollo said Friday, the day before Oktoberfest officially started. “If there’s an alternative to have the crisp and fresh taste from a typical Weihenstephan beer, but just as a non-alcoholic version, we want to do that.”
Even at Oktoberfest — arguably the world’s most famous ode to alcohol — alcohol-free beer is on the menu.
All but two of the 18 large tents at the festival offer the drink through the celebration’s 16 days. The sober beverage will cost drinkers the same as an alcoholic beer — between 13.60 and 15.30 euros ($15.12 and $17.01) for a 1-liter mug (33 fluid ounces) — but save them from a hangover.
“For people who don’t like to drink alcohol and want to enjoy the Oktoberfest as well, I think it’s a good option,” Mikael Caselitz, 24, of Munich said Saturday inside one of the tents. “Sometimes people feel like they have more fun with alcohol, which is not a good thing because you can also have fun without alcohol.”
He added: “If you want to come and drink alcohol-free beer, nobody will judge you.”
This year marked the first time an alcohol-free beer garden opened in Munich. “Die Null,” which means “the zero” in German, served non-alcoholic beer, mocktails and other alcohol-free drinks near the city’s main train station this summer but was scheduled to close a few day before Oktoberfest opened.
Walter König, managing director of the Society of Hop Research north of Munich, said researchers have had to breed special hops varieties for alcohol-free beer. If brewers use the typical hops for alcohol-free beer, the distinct aroma gets lost when the alcohol is reduced during the brewing process.
But customers don’t care about that, König said Friday as he prepared for Oktoberfest.
“They only want to know that what they are tasting is as good as traditional beers with alcohol,” he said.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The social media platform X began returning to Brazil on Wednesday, after remaining inaccessible for more than a month due to a clash between its owner, Elon Musk, and a justice on the country’s highest court.
Internet service providers began restoring access to the platform after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized lifting X’s suspension on Tuesday.
“TWITTER IS ALIVE,” Lucas dos Santos Consoli, known as luscas on X, wrote on the platform to his more than 7 million followers.
“I’m happy that the platform decided to follow the laws of Brazil and finally adapted, after all I’ve been using the app for almost 15 years so I can’t deny that I was missing it,” the 31-year-old told The Associated Press.
De Moraes ordered the shutdown of X on Aug. 30 after a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, although his rulings, including X’s nationwide suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers.
Musk’s company ultimately complied with all of de Moraes’ demands. They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative. Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension.
“This sends a message to the world that the richest person on the planet is subject to local laws and constitutions,” said David Nemer, who specializes in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia. It could set a precedent as to how other countries that are clashing with Musk — such as Australia — could move forward, as it shows Musk is not unbeatable, he added.
Brazil — a highly online country of 213 million people — is one of X’s biggest markets, with estimates of its user base ranging from 20 million to 40 million.
“X is proud to return to Brazil,” the company said in a statement posted on its Global Government Affairs account. “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”
Julia Bahri, an 18-year-old law student, said she was delighted with X’s return. She said that losing access to the platform had led to “one of the most desperate feelings I’ve experienced for a while,” adding that she had felt lost with regards to news.
Bahri said she uses X to express herself, whereas Instagram and Snapchat are mostly for posting photos.
The Aug. 30 ban came two days after the company said it was removing all its remaining staff in Brazil. X said de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative in the country, Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição, if the company did not comply with orders to block accounts.
Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action — particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts.
Sleeping Giants Brazil, a platform for activism that seeks to combat fake news and hate speech, said the resumption of X’s activities in Brazil marked “a significant victory for Brazilian democracy.”
“It is crucial to remain steadfast against efforts to weaken democratic state authority, institutions and values,” it said in a statement.
In a statement to the AP, Bluesky reported that it now has 10.6 million users and continues to see strong growth in Brazil. Bluesky has appointed a legal representative in the South American country.
“Never get back with your eX,” Paul Frazee, a developer at Bluesky, wrote on the platform on Tuesday.
X is returning to Brazil weaker than it was before the ban, said Nemer, noting that X is now worth less than a fifth than when Musk bought Twitter. The platform has lost a lot of users, especially in Brazil, he said.
Brazil was not the first country to ban X — but such a drastic step has generally been limited to authoritarian regimes. The platform and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.
X’s dustup with Brazil has some parallels to the company’s dealings with the Indian government three years ago, back when it was still called Twitter and before Musk purchased it for $44 billion. In 2021, India threatened to arrest employees of Twitter (as well as Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp), for not complying with the government’s requests to take down posts related to farmers’ protests that rocked the country.
Musk’s decision to reverse course in Brazil after publicly criticizing de Moraes isn’t surprising, said Matteo Ceurvels, research firm Emarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain.
“The move was pragmatic, likely driven by the economic consequences of losing access to millions of users in its third-largest market worldwide, along with the millions of dollars in associated advertising revenue,” Ceurvels said.
“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it,” he said.
Wearing an oversized bucket hat, silver chains and a black Miu Miu shirt, 82-year-old Park Jeom-sun gesticulates, her voice rising and falling with staccato lines about growing chili peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Park, nicknamed Suni, was flanked by seven longtime friends who repeated her moves and her lines. Together, they’re Suni and the Seven Princesses, South Korea ‘s latest octogenarian sensation. With an average age of 85, they’re probably the oldest rap group in the country.
Born at a time when women were often marginalized in education, Park and her friends were among a group of older adults learning how to read and write the Korean alphabet, hangeul, at a community center in their farming village in South Korea’s rural southeast.
Kang Hye-eun makes corrections to some Korean words written by her grandmother Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Sunni and the Seven Princesses, at a senior community center in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
They were having so much fun that they started dabbling with poetry. They began writing and performing rap in summer last year.
Suni and the Seven Princesses enjoy nationwide fame, appearing in commercials and going viral on social media. South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo sent them a congratulatory message last month on their first anniversary, praising their passion for learning.
At a road near their community center in Chilgok on Thursday, Park and her friends were rehearsing for a performance Friday evening in the capital, Seoul, where they were invited to open an event celebrating hangeul heritage.
“Picking chili peppers at the pepper field, picking cucumbers at the cucumber field, picking eggplants at the eggplant field, picking zucchini at the zucchini field!” the group rapped along with Park. “We’re back home now and it feels so good!”
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses pose for a photo in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Leader Park Jeom-sun, 82-year-old, center, and other members of Suni and the Seven Princesses eat lunch before their training at senior community center in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses rest after their lunch at senior community center in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses exercise at senior community center in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park said the group usually practices two or three times a week, more if they’re preparing for a show.
On Friday, hundreds of people applauded and cheered, and then the group lined up for a photo with South Korean Culture Minister Yu In Chon.
Park talked about the joy of learning to read, saying she can now “go to the bank, ride the bus and go anywhere” she wants without someone helping her.
“During and after the Korean War, I couldn’t study because of the social atmosphere, but I started learning hangeul in 2016,” Park said, referring to the devastating war between North and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. “Being introduced to rap while learning hangeul has made me feel better, and I thought it would help me stay healthy and avoid dementia.”
Kang Hye-eun, Park’s 29-year-old granddaughter and a local healthcare worker who helps older adults, said she was proud to see her grandmother on television and in viral videos.
“It’s amazing that she got to know hangeul like this and has started to rap,” she said.
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses rap inside a senior community center in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
82-year-old Park Jeom-sun walks with her granddaughter Kang Hye-eun outside their old house in Chilgok, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, prepares for the opening of an event celebrating the heritage of the Korean alphabet, called “Hangeul,” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses rehearse for the opening event celebrating the heritage of the Korean alphabet, called “Hangeul,” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A member of the audience uses a smartphone to film members of Suni and the Seven Princesses performing during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses perform during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses stand for a photograph with South Korea’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yu In Chon, after performing at the “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Young rappers bow in respect to members of Suni and the Seven Princesses after their performance during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses acknowledge applause by the crowd during the opening event celebrating the heritage of the Korean alphabet, called “Hangeul,” in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses, stand after their performance during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Park Jeom-sun, 82, leader of Suni and the Seven Princesses, adjusts her hat in a mirror during the opening ceremony of the Korean alphabet, “Hangeul Week” at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Members of Suni and the Seven Princesses pose for a photo at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
LUCKNOW, India (AP) — American and British climbers have been rescued after being stranded for three days on a mountain in India’s Himalayan north.
Fay Jane Manners from the United Kingdom and Michelle Theresa Dvorak from the United States were ascending a rocky section of the Chaukhamba-3 peak in India’s Uttarakhand state when they got stranded there, said Sandeep Tiwari, a senior administrative officer of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district. The climbers were rescued on Sunday, he said.
The climbers were first reported stranded on Thursday when a rockfall severed their rope, sending their bags — along with crucial supplies like food, tent and climbing gear — into a gorge. The climbers also lost most of their communication equipment, but managed to send out an emergency message the same day.
“We were pulling up my bag and she (Dvorak) had her bag on her. And the rockfall came, cut the rope with the other bag, and it just went down the entire mountain,” Manners told local reporters on Sunday.
The rescue operation took 80 hours to complete and involved the Indian air force and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority.
Rajkumar Negi, a spokesperson for India’s disaster management agency, said that two Indian Air Force helicopters dispatched on Friday to help with the search were unable to locate the climbers. But on Saturday, a French mountaineering team, which was also attempting to climb the Chaukhamba-3 peak, located the stranded climbers and relayed their coordinates to the rescue authorities.
The Indian air force said in a statement on social platform X that it airlifted the climbers on Sunday “from 17,400 feet, showcasing remarkable coordination in extreme conditions.”
Chaukhamba-3 is a mountain peak in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.
PARIS (AP) — Chemena Kamali’s sophomore collection for Chloé was a luminous exploration of femininity, blending the house’s heritage with a fresh, sensual energy for spring. Set against a backdrop of sun-faded apricots, blushes and soft whites, the Paris collection captured Kamali’s vision of a summer that she surmised as: “when you pause, escape, explore and recharge.” It celebrated Chloé’s free-spirited DNA, infused with a lightness that felt both nostalgic and forward-looking.
Here are some highlights of Thursday’s shows at Paris Fashion Week, including a French honor for Naomi Campbell:
Kamali’s joyful freedom
“There’s a liberating expression of total freedom,” Kamali said of her spring display.
This freedom flowed through silk charmeuse gowns, lingerie-inspired crop tops and peek-a-boo designs.
Echoes of Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘70s Chloé lingered in exaggerated shoulders and standout pieces, like a loose-fitting, vivid blue coat. “Chloé is not a passing moment; it’s an eternal state of mind,” Kamali noted, grounding her collection in the house’s long-standing ethos of optimism and instinct.
Layering played a central role, but Kamali kept it light and intuitive, reflecting what she called a “very personal way of dressing.” Sheer fabrics and sun-worn lace mixed effortlessly with ribbed jerseys, creating looks that felt weightless and spontaneous, a signature of Kamali’s debut collection. “What matters to me is the feeling and intuition,” she said.
A standout moment came in the form of a dramatic trapeze-shaped silk gown, its dynamic silhouette swirling with movement. It epitomized Kamali’s ability to honor Chloé’s romantic roots while infusing a modern sensibility. “The mood is light, weightless, sensual and joyful,” she explained. That joyful freedom was a defining thread from start to finish.
With her second outing, Kamali proved she is the right designer to lead Chloé. She crafted a spring collection that balanced nostalgia and sensuality while pushing the house toward a bright, optimistic future.
Mugler’s Cadwallader takes a bite at fashion
Casey Cadwallader delivered a striking show for Mugler, equal parts theatrical and innovative. The hair, sculpted into harsh fringes like a viper’s fang, set the tone for a collection defined by sharp architectural lines. Curving lapels adorned tight jackets, while tendrils of latticed silk flowed into skirts that bled vibrant yellows, creating a visual spectacle.
The collection boldly embraced femininity, featuring a bust that echoed the form of seashells and a densely packed bustier resembling a diving whale. This daring aesthetic aligns with Cadwallader’s aim to infuse the brand with a fresh energy, moving away from the extravagance that some original Mugler fans long for.
Oversized tubular arms complemented a webbed skirt-coat, while a transparent loose trench evoked the look of a sea medusa, reinforcing Cadwallader’s commitment to pushing boundaries.
Naomi Campbell honored in France amid charity controversy
Iconic British model Naomi Campbell was awarded a prestigious honor in France, being named a knight in the Order of Arts and Letters at the culture ministry for her significant contributions to French culture.
However, this recognition comes as Campbell faces scrutiny back home, having been barred from serving as a charity trustee in England and Wales for five years. This decision follows a three-year investigation into the financial activities of her charity, “Fashion for Relief,” which was found to have been “poorly governed” and lacking in “adequate financial management.”
The Charity Commission, which oversees charities in England and Wales, reported multiple instances of misconduct, revealing that only 8.5% of the charity’s expenditures went to charitable grants over a six-year period from 2016. Notably, the inquiry uncovered that charity funds were misused for Campbell’s luxury hotel stays during events in Cannes, alongside personal expenses such as spa treatments and room service.
In response to a question from the AP, Campbell said, “I’ve just found out today about the findings and I am extremely concerned. We are investigating on our side. I was not in control of my charity; I put the control in the hands of a legal employer. We are investigating to find out what and how, and everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes to charity.”
Alongside Campbell, fellow trustee Bianka Hellmich has been disqualified for nine years after receiving unauthorized payments for consultancy services, while trustee Veronica Chou has been barred for four years. The charity, founded in 2005 to unite the fashion industry in addressing global poverty, was dissolved earlier this year, having raised over $15 million for various causes worldwide.
Despite the controversy, Campbell’s honor in France highlights her lasting impact on the cultural landscape.
Rick Owens enchants with gothic splendor
At Thursday’s show at the Palais de Tokyo, Rick Owens unleashed a captivating spectacle that felt like a dramatic descent into a realm inhabited by gothic aliens. The atmosphere was thick with smoke and suspense as an army of biblical figures marched out in impressive diagonal formations, their asymmetrical knee-high leather boots featuring translucent heels, making each step a statement.
Owens’ trademark angular, alien-like geometric shoulders dominated the runway, capturing the essence of his singular vision—one that merges dark romanticism with avant-garde aesthetics. The collection was a testament to his ability to blend his gothic instincts with a sense of reverent irreverence, reminiscent of the “delicate time” he referenced in previous collections, where beauty and horror coexist.
As the show unfolded, a billowing coven emerged, clad in oversized black priest-like hoods and flowing tulle cloaks that draped elegantly over their forms. Some models donned discreet headscarves, striking a balance between reverence and defiance, perfectly embodying Owens’ commentary on societal norms. This juxtaposition echoes his commitment to inclusivity, presenting a vision of fashion that celebrates diversity while challenging conventional beauty standards.
The intricate craftsmanship used in the collection exemplified Owens’ mastery. Each piece, from the cloaks to the striking silhouettes, invited viewers to appreciate humble fabrics. This aligns with his insistence that he presents “the most excellent aesthetics” possible, recognizing the nuanced interplay between the dark and the light in our world.
While some may find Owens’ aesthetic too avant-garde or even gloomy, this show reaffirmed his position as a provocative force in fashion. The theatricality and elaborate design remind us of his role as one of the last independent designers in Paris, navigating the complexities of the fashion landscape with fierce authenticity.
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Associated Press journalist Marine Lesprit contributed to this report.
LONDON (AP) — It’s been a year since a sycamore tree that stood high and proud near the Roman landmark of Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England was inexplicably chopped down, triggering a wave of shock and disbelief across the U.K., even among those who had never seen it up close.
Known and loved by millions, the 150-year-old tree was made famous around the world when it featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” The Sycamore Gap tree, as it was known because of its regal canopy framed between two hills, was a popular subject for landscape photographers and a great resting spot for walkers.
Now it is going to get a new lease of life — dozens of them.
The National Trust, a conservation charity that seeks to protect and open up historic places and green spaces to the general public, launched an initiative on Friday in which 49 saplings from the tree will be given to communities around the U.K. Other saplings will be sent to the U.K.’s 15 national parks and the local primary school.
The initiative, which also involves the local Northumberland National Park Authority and Historic England, the public organization that looks after England’s historic environment, is called “Trees of Hope” and aims to “create a new chapter in the life of this legendary tree.”
Each of the 49 saplings — one to represent each foot of the tree’s height when it was felled — is expected to be 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall on delivery.
People from around the U.K. are invited to apply for a tree to plant in publicly accessible spaces which have emotional connections with people and communities. Entries must be made by Oct. 25, with winners announced on Nov. 18.
“The last 12 months have been a real rollercoaster of emotions, from the hopelessness and grief we felt when we discovered that the tree had been illegally felled, to experiencing the stories shared with us about just what the tree meant to so many,” said Andrew Poad, general manager for the National Trust’s Hadrian’s Wall properties.
Also on Friday, the Northumberland National Park Authority is marking the anniversary of the felling with the opening of the first phase of an exhibition, “Sycamore Gap: One Year On,” including the largest remaining section of the tree.
Two men — Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers — have been charged with two counts over the felling of the tree. One count is for allegedly cutting down the tree and the second is for damage to the adjacent wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire. Prosecutors have calculated that the cost of the felling was around 620,000 pounds ($825,000).
Both have been released on bail ahead of their trial scheduled for early December.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — They were sharing the world stage to discuss a plan to give young people more input in decisions that shape lives. And 26-year-old Daphne Frias, talking to the head of the United Nations, had thoughts.
“Truly, it’s time for the people who do so much of the talking to do less of the talking,” the disability and climate activist told Secretary-General António Guterres. “And to have the voices of my generation … lead.”
A big young cohort is coming of age in a troubled world, and it’s coming with ideas about inclusion, participation and authority. Those ideas are nudging the hierarchical, bureaucratic ways of an international order set up when their grandparents were kids or not even born.
“My generation messed up when it comes to the world today,” the 75-year-old U.N. chief told Frias and an audience of activists and others in the vast, coolly elegant assembly hall.
The world needs a new generation that understands “we are living to disaster” and can turn it around, Guterres said, adding emphatically: “We cannot do that if your generation is not part of the decision-making process that is still controlled by my generation that messed up.”
Passing the torch can be difficult
But how to make that change in a global system and governments largely run by older people, and a United Nations that has tried to engage the young but still has some procedures, protocol — and even architecture — reflecting what was “modern” more than seven decades ago? Does the U.N. matter, anyway, to a social-network-native generation with its own means of connecting and organizing across borders, and with a sense of urgency that chafes at the pace of intergovernmental accords?
Marinel Sumook Ubaldo, a 27-year-old Filipina climate activist, has been involved in U.N. conferences and believes the world body can be a valuable platform for advocacy. But so can grassroots organizing and building public pressure outside big organizations, Ubaldo says.
“If the U.N. can shift from symbolic inclusion to truly empowering youth with decision-making authority and accountability mechanisms, I would say it would remain relevant,” she said. “But if not, young people will continue to forge new paths.”
Over 1.9 billion people — nearly a quarter of the world population — are between ages 10 and 24. But young people are sparse in the corridors of power. Under 3% of members of national legislatures are under 30, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a global group of such bodies.
Of course, today’s young activists aren’t the first to worry about the world they’re inheriting, to yearn to be heard or to feel they can’t wait patiently for the creaky wheels of change to turn.
But this generation has been steeped in a particular brew of risks and crises: post-9/11 wars and security culture, a financial meltdown, a pandemic, billions of people living in conflict zones, a planet that’s warming at the fastest rate ever measured. And, with the rise of social media, the generation’s ideas about solutions to such challenges move around faster than ever before.
As Frias puts it, “we don’t have time for dues to be paid” to try to influence things.
“We constantly get told that we are inspirational, that we’re doing a great job, that we are the future,” Frias, an American-born daughter of Dominican immigrants, said in an interview. “But inspiration doesn’t change the world. Action does.”
There’s growing momentum — to a point
Over the years, the U.N. has made various overtures to young people. An assistant secretary-general for youth affairs, Dr. Felipe Paullier, was tapped last year. There had previously been a lower-level youth envoy.
A 2018 initiative called “Youth 2030” is meant to make young people “full-fledged partners” in the U.N.’s work. A recent update said progress has been “steady but slower than desired.”
Now comes the “ Pact for the Future,” a wide-ranging document approved Sunday at a summit that kicked off this year’s big General Assembly gathering. The pact includes pledges to spend more on youth services, to create jobs and to promote “meaningful youth participation” in national policymaking and U.N. processes.
That might sound bland to the casual observer. But through a U.N. lens, devoting a chapter to youth and future generations in a laboriously negotiated global blueprint — and getting 193 nations to sign off — elevates and enshrines youths as a priority.
“Ten or 15 years ago, you know, young people were just seen as beneficiaries of policies,” Paullier, 33, said in an interview. “There are many things changing that are showing institutions, decision-makers, are saying, ‘OK, we need to engage with them as partners.’”
There’s still far to go, he notes.
Participation must actually be meaningful
Nudhara Yusuf, who co-chaired a civil society conference that helped prepare for the recent summit, says the U.N. has made “a real turn” toward engaging young people. Now it’s a question of making promises of “meaningful” participation … meaningful.
“How do you go beyond just putting someone on a panel? How do you ensure that they’re part of the dialogue offstage, as well?” asks Yusuf, 25. Born in Britain and raised in India, she’s a researcher at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.
Young activists also may lack the resources to move in international circles when it entails far-flung travel. While many have started organizations and done fundraising, some say it’s hard getting past a “youth organization” rubric to tap bigger pools of grants, despite working on broader issues.
Amani Joel Mafigi, who co-founded an entrepreneurship organization in Uganda, thinks the U.N. should establish a youth empowerment fund to back climate, social justice and innovation initiatives. The 27-year-old offered that suggestion to the secretary-general at the same event with Frias.
In an interview, Mafigi added that he’d want young “changemakers” to be central to structuring such a fund and steering its work.
“I have seen how much young people with little resources can do and can achieve within a minimum period of time, with less bureaucratic processes,” said Mafigi, who fled Congo as a refugee in 2008.
Guterres told him, Frias and others in the assembly hall that the U.N. aims to add more young staffers and to give youths a voice “when things are being decided, not when things have been decided.”
“But, I mean, let’s be clear: Power is never given. Power is taken,” Guterres said. “So I encourage young people not to be afraid to fight for their rights.”
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s outgoing president has always taken pride in his reputation as a penny-pincher but on Friday, three days before leaving office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced generous cash giveaways for his allies in a radical union movement.
It was part of what analysts call López Obrador’s contradictory policies of cutting some government services to the bone while handing out vast amounts for his own pet projects and to political supporters.
He granted an electrical workers’ union about $95 million a year in unearned pension benefits, describing it as “an act of justice.”
In 2009, some 7,000 of the unionized workers from the debt-ridden, corrupt and overstaffed government power company were laid off. Still, they spent the next decade supporting López Obrador’s two subsequent presidential campaigns.
At the time they were sacked, the workers had not accumulated enough years to retire, under policies allowing retirement after 25 years of service. On Friday, López Obrador gave them pensions anyway.
The action was in line with his generosity to those who support him.
Last year, he gave about $45 million to former workers of a defunct government-owned airline, Mexicana, in order to acquire the trademark rights to the airline’s name, Mexicana de Aviacion.
Experts say the name had essentially no commercial value after the airline went bankrupt in 2010, but the workers — whose pensions were wiped out by the company’s collapse — had been been strong supporters of López Obrador in his presidential bids. He has since spent hundreds of millions of dollars more to revive a smaller version of the government airline.
The lavish giveaways contrast sharply with the image of extreme austerity that López Obrador has sought to project since taking office in 2018 — he sold off the presidential jet and flew around the country on commercial airline flights, in tourist class. Later, he switched to using military aircraft for trips.
He largely eliminated federal oversight and regulatory agencies, claiming they cost too much and arguing that one “cannot have a rich government with poor people.” Federal revenues sharing for state governments and funding local police forces has been slashed to the bone.
That austerity has meant less money for basic projects, including building infrastructure, road construction and maintenance and policing.
Meanwhile, in a rush to finish López Obrador’s pet projects — mostly rail and refinery projects of questionable profitability — the government went on a borrowing spree, running a deficit equivalent to 5% of GDP. That has undermined the central bank’s attempts to control the 5% annual inflation with domestic interest rates of 10.5%.
Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis of the local financial group Banco Base, said the contradictory policies have hurt Mexico.
There has been less “physical investment,” Siller said. “Paradoxically, this administration is ending up with more debt and a very high budget deficit.”
In his final days in office, López Obrador has been harsh to his enemies.
Late on Monday, he essentially expropriated the $1.9 billion property on the Caribbean coast owned by a U.S. firm that operates a stone quarry and seaport just south of the resort of Playa del Carmen. He declared the land a nature reserve — despite previously granted permits for a quarry and a dock there.
López Obrador had previously threatened to expropriate the property and later offered to buy it for about $385 million, saying at the time he wanted to turn it into a tourist attraction. The company has estimated the land’s value at about $1.9 billion.
The U.S. company that owned the property — Alabama-based Vulcan Materials — said Tuesday the expropriation violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement and was part of “a series of threats and actions by the current administration against our operations.”
The outgoing Mexican leader has also engaged in very public and nasty disputes with retail, TV and banking magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego, claiming the tycoon owes over $1 billion in back taxes.
Then, López Obrador claimed he had tried to offer Salinas Pliego a deal to forgive late charges on the back taxes but met with the magnate’s refusal out of “arrogance.”
Salinas Pliego punched back, accusing allies of López Obrador’s son Andy — a top leader in the president’s Morena party — of trying to extort money from businessmen with back tax audits against them.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Little brings more heavenly bliss to the faithful or otherworldly wonder to casual visitors than ethereal hymns cascading amid the columns of Catholic cathedrals. That is, unless the composer is a known molester or someone accused of sexual abuse.
A few days before the highlight of Pope Francis’ visit to Belgium — a Mass at the biggest stadium in Brussels — the specially selected choir of 120 was rehearsing a brand-new closing hymn when it became known that the composer was a priest accused of molesting young women.
The hymn was hastily removed from the order of service and replaced with another composition but it was too late to reprint the official Magnificat booklet for the Mass because of the number of copies required. The name of the alleged abuser, who died two weeks ago, is right there at the bottom of page 52, next to a request for donations, with a bank account number and a QR code.
It was the latest controversy in the Belgian church’s decades-long struggle to come to terms with an appalling history of sex abuse and cover-ups by its priests and clergy — a legacy Francis will confront in person when he meets with survivors of the abuse during his visit.
“I pointed it out to them,” said the Rev. Rik Deville, a retired priest who has been a torchbearer for survivors of church abuse for three decades. “What happened with the hymn is only a symptom of a much wider problem. They still cannot deal with the issue,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
For over two decades, Belgium has been facing a continual cascade of abuse reports that officially total several hundred known cases but which, advocates say, are only the tip of the iceberg: Many of the victims and perpetrators have died, or the alleged crimes have exceeded their statute of limitations.
Deville said victims in villages come face to face with such issues on a weekly basis. The Sunday Mass scandal only started to roll early this week when an abuse victim pointed out to a local bishop that he had warmly eulogized the recently deceased priest-composer who had, in fact, been an abuser.
As a result, the Bishop of Limburg, Patrick Hoogmartens, announced he wouldn’t take part in celebratory papal events. It set off the chain of events leading to the change in the Mass program.
“It is only now because it is an international event that something is done about it,” said Deville. “But such things happen on a weekly basis in parishes across the nation that victims are confronted like that. And then nothing is done about it.”
Church authorities said the hymns were chosen in coordination with the musicians who were unaware of the case, which only came to public attention after the recent death of the priest. Hundreds of churches across Belgium still have hymnbooks with his works.
Archbishop Luc Terlinden promised the church would look into it as soon as the Pope leaves.
“Every Sunday in every parish his songs are sung. So it is a wider problem. And I want to look into this as of Monday to see what we will do in the future with our policy on culprits, on facts out of respect for the victims,” Terlinden told VRT network.
Debates over what to do with art, be it music or paintings, when the artist has engaged in problematic or even criminal behavior, have confronted the church and society at large for centuries, long before “cancel culture” became a buzzword.
Few people argue that Caravaggio’s religious masterpieces should be destroyed or taken down because of his criminal life: The man he killed is dead, as is he.
But in Los Angeles four years ago, the archdiocese banned the music of Catholic composer David Haas amid an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, allegations Haas strenuously denied.
And more recently, the mosaics of one of the Catholic Church’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, the Rev. Marko Rupnik, have come under scrutiny.
Rupnik’s Jesuit religious order expelled him in 2023 after more than two dozen women accused him of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuses, some while he was creating the artwork. Francis reopened a church investigation amid suspicions that Rupnik had escaped punishment in Francis’ Jesuit-friendly Vatican.
Rupnik hasn’t responded publicly to the allegations, but his art studio has defended him and denounced what it has called a media “lynching.”
The issue about what to do with his artwork is not minor, since Rupnik’s mosaics decorate the facades and altars of some of the most-visited basilicas and churches around the world, including at Lourdes, France; in Fatima, Portugal and even in the Vatican’s apostolic palace.
So far, the bishop of Lourdes decided to keep the Rupnik mosaics — for now — because there was no consensus within a committee of experts he formed about what to do with them. The Knights of Columbus religious fraternity decided this summer to cover the mosaics at its shrine in Washington, and chapel in Connecticut.
But earlier this year, the head of the Vatican’s communications department created an uproar when he defended the continued use of images of Rupnik’s mosaics on the Vatican’s own news portal, Vatican News, even as a canonical investigation is underway at the Vatican’s sex crimes office.
He argued, as have others, that one must separate the art from the artist.
That argument did not sit well with the pope’s top adviser on child protection and fighting clergy abuse, Cardinal Sean O’Malley. He penned a letter to the heads of all Vatican offices in June urging them to refrain from displaying Rupnik’s artwork as a gesture to abuse victims.
“Pastoral prudence would prevent displaying artwork in a way that could imply either exoneration or a subtle defense,” he wrote in June. “We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
LONDON (AP) — British supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from being a charity trustee in England and Wales for five years after the poverty charity she founded nearly two decades ago was deemed Thursday to have been “poorly governed” with “inadequate financial management.”
Following a three-year investigation into the financial activities of “Fashion for Relief,” the Charity Commission, which registers and regulates charities in England and Wales, said it had found “multiple instances of misconduct and/or mismanagement,” and that only 8.5% of the charity’s overall expenditure went on charitable grants in a six-year period from 2016.
For example, it said that thousands of pounds worth of charity funds were used to pay for a luxury hotel stay in Cannes, France, for Campbell as well as spa treatments, room service and even cigarettes. The regulator sought explanations from the trustees but said no evidence was provided to back up their explanation that hotel costs were typically covered by a donor to the charity, therefore not costing the charity.
Campbell, 54, said she was “extremely concerned” by the findings of the regulator and that an investigation on her part was underway.
“I was not in control of my charity, I put the control in the hands of a legal employer,” she said in response to a question from the AP after being named a knight in France’s Order of Arts and Letters at the country’s culture ministry for her contribution to French culture. “We are investigating to find out what and how, and everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes to charity.”
The commission, which registers and registers and regulates charities in England and Wales, also found that fellow trustee Bianka Hellmich received around 290,000 pounds ($385,000) of unauthorized funds for consultancy services, which was in breach of the charity’s constitution. She has been disqualified as a trustee for nine years. The other trustee, Veronica Chou, was barred for four years.
“Trustees are legally required to make decisions that are in their charity’s best interests and to comply with their legal duties and responsibilities,” said Tim Hopkins, deputy director for specialist investigations and standards. “Our inquiry has found that the trustees of this charity failed to do so, which has resulted in our action to disqualify them.”
The charity, which was founded in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year. On its website, which is still active, the charity said that it presented fashion initiatives and projects in New York, London, Cannes, Moscow, Mumbai and Dar es Salaam, raising more than $15 million for good causes around the world.
The charity had been set up with the aim of uniting the fashion industry to relieve poverty and advance health and education, by making grants to other organizations and giving resources towards global disasters.
The commission said that around 344,000 pounds ($460,000) has been recovered and that a further 98,000 pounds of charitable funds have been protected. These funds were used to make donations to two other charities and settle outstanding liabilities.
“I am pleased that the inquiry has seen donations made to other charities which this charity has previously supported,” said the regulator’s Hopkins.
BERLIN (AP) — Officials are investigating why a concrete bridge partially collapsed in eastern Germany early Wednesday, disrupting a major traffic artery in Dresden and interrupting the heating system for a city nicknamed “Florence on the Elbe” for its Baroque architecture.
No one was injured when a section of the Carola Bridge fell into the Elbe River, the Dresden fire department said on its website. Police are treating the collapse as an accident, because there are no signs of foul play, according to German news agency dpa.
The bridge dates back to East Germany’s formerly communist era, dpa reported, and officials at the scene said that chlorine corrosion from the time could have contributed to Wednesday’s collapse.
The emergency closure of the entire bridge snarled travel for the city’s tram system, as well as motorists, pedestrians and cyclists who use the span to travel between Dresden’s Old Town and New Town. Boat traffic is also halted, affecting cargo ships and tourism sightseeing vessels.
Crews were alerted shortly after 3 a.m. and are concerned more of the bridge — one of several crossings over the Elbe — could collapse in the coming hours.
The last tram crossed the span just 18 minutes before the collapse, dpa reported. The section that fell was scheduled to be renovated next year, while other parts only reopened in March after months of construction.
Pipes that are part of the city’s heating system were also damaged.
“In addition, due to the bursting of two large district heating pipes, we have the problem that the supply of hot water has come to a complete standstill in the entire federal state capital of Dresden,” fire department spokesman Michael Klahre told reporters.
Dresden is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Berlin.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
PARIS (AP) — Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is getting its bells back, just in time for the medieval landmark’s reopening following a devastating 2019 fire.
A convoy of trucks bearing eight restored bells — the heaviest of which weighs more than 4 tons — pulled into the huge worksite surrounding the monument Thursday on an island in the Seine River.
They are being blessed in a special ceremony inside the cathedral before being hoisted to hang in its twin towers for the Dec. 8 reopening to the public.
Cathedral Rector Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, wearing a hardhat as he prepared to enter the cathedral and bless the bells, called them ‘’a sign that the cathedral will again resonate, and that its voice will be heard again. A sign of the call to prayer, and a sign of coming together.”
The bells will be raised one by one and tested out, but they won’t ring in full until the day of the reopening, said Philippe Jost, overseeing the massive Notre Dame reconstruction project. He called the bells’ arrival ‘’a very beautiful symbol of the cathedral’s rebirth.’’
While construction on the cathedral started in the 12th century, the bronze bells damaged in the fire are from the 21st century. They were built according to historical tradition to replace older bells that had become discordant, to mark the monument’s 850th anniversary.
Czech authorities erected metal barriers or protective walls from sandbags, while water was released from dams to make space in reservoirs. Residents have been warned to get ready for possible evacuations.
Some public events planned for the weekend have been cancelled at the request of authorities, including soccer matches in the top two leagues.
“We have to be ready for the worst case scenarios,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said after a meeting of his government’s central crisis committee. “A tough weekend is ahead of us.”
Meteorologists say a low pressure system from northern Italy was predicted to dump much rainfall in most parts of the Czech Republic, or Czechia, including the capital and border regions with Austria and Germany in the south, and Poland in the north.
Central Europeans are especially wary because some experts have compared the weekend forecast to devastating floods in 1997 in the region, referred to by some as the flood of the century.
Over 100 people were killed in the floods 27 years ago, including 50 in the eastern Czech Republic where large sections of land was inundated.
The biggest rainfall was predicted in the eastern half of the country, particularly in the Jeseniky mountains. The second largest city of Brno, located in eastern Czech Republic, is among places that have not had flooding protection work completed, unlike Prague.
Czechs were asked not to go to parks and woods as high winds of up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour were forecast.
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled on Friday to the southwestern Polish city of Wrocław where floods are forecast. Authorities appealed to residents to stock up on food and to prepare for power outages by charging power banks.
Tusk, meeting with firefighters and other emergency officials, said the forecasts were “not excessively alarming.”
“There is no reason to panic, but there is a reason to be fully mobilized,” he stressed.
The German Weather Service warned of heavy precipitation across swaths of the country, including the Alps, where heavy snowfall and strong winds are expected at higher altitudes.
The Alpine nation of Austria is also getting ready for heavy rains, and a massive cold front that is expected to bring snow to higher elevations.
The weather change arrived following a hot start to September in the region. Scientists have recorded Earth’s hottest summer on record, breaking a record set just one year ago.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s air safety authority said Thursday that a defect in an engine component of a Cathay Pacific Airways Airbus A350 that caused a fire, forcing a Zurich-bound flight to return to Hong Kong, could have caused “extensive damage” to the aircraft.
The report on the Sept. 2 incident by Hong Kong’s Air Accident Investigation Authority said the steel braided sheath of a fuel hose connecting to a fuel spray nozzle was ruptured. Had the faulty component not been promptly detected and repaired, it could have escalated into a more serious engine fire.
A preliminary investigation found soot on a section of the aircraft’s core engine, indicating signs of a fire.
Five other fuel hoses in the Cathay jet also were found to have either “frayed metal braids or collapsed structures,” the report said.
Cathay Pacific said in a statement that it “acknowledged” the report.
“Following the incident, Cathay Pacific immediately contacted the aircraft and engine manufacturers as well as the regulator,” the statement read. “As a precautionary measure, it proactively initiated a fleet-wide inspection of its Airbus A350 aircraft that cleared the aircraft for operation.”
The engine fire aboard the Cathay plane caused cancellations of 70 flights and prompted inspections of the carrier’s fleet of 48 Airbus A350 jets. Other airlines, such as Japan Airlines, conducted inspections on similar models in their fleets following the incident.
The report released Thursday recommended that Rolls-Royce, which makes the Trent XWB-84 and XWB-97 engines that power Airbus’ A350 jets, provide information including the inspection requirements of the affected components “to ensure their serviceability.”
After the incident, the European Union’s Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued a directive requiring a one-time fleet inspection for some A350s after receiving safety recommendations from Hong Kong’s Air Accident Investigation Authority.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Swedish authorities accused Iran on Tuesday of being responsible for thousands of text messages sent to people in Sweden calling for revenge over the burnings of Islam’s holy book in 2023. Iran denied the accusation.
According to officials in Stockholm, the cyberattack was carried out by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which hacked an SMS service and sent “some 15,000 text messages in Swedish” over the string of public burnings of the Quran that took place over several months in Sweden during the summer of 2023.
Senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said a preliminary investigation by Sweden’s SAPO domestic security agency showed “it was the Iranian state via the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, that carried out a data breach at a Swedish company that runs a major SMS service.”
The Swedish company was not named.
The Iranian Embassy in Sweden in a statement rejected the accusation as “baseless” and said it was intended to “poison” relations between Tehran and Stockholm, the official IRNA news agency reported. The embassy expects the Swedish government to prevent the spread of such statements, the report said.
In August 2023, Swedish media reported that a large number of people in Sweden had received text messages in Swedish calling for revenge against people who were burning the Quran, Ljungqvist said, adding that the sender of the messages was “a group calling itself the Anzu team.”
Swedish broadcaster SVT published a photo of a text message, saying that “those who desecrated the Quran must have their work covered in ashes” and calling Swedes “demons.”
The protests were held under the freedom of speech act, which is protected under the Swedish constitution. The rallies were approved by police. However, the incidents left Sweden torn between its commitment to free speech and its respect for religious minorities.
The clash of fundamental principles had complicated Sweden’s desire to join NATO, an expansion that gained urgency after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine but needed the approval of all alliance members.
Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had temporarily blocked Sweden’s accession, citing reasons including anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic protests in Stockholm but Sweden finally became a NATO member in March.
At the time, the Swedish government said it “strongly rejects the Islamophobic act committed by individuals in Sweden,” adding that the desecrations did not reflect the country’s stand.
In July last year, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement saying that “the insult to the Holy Quran in Sweden is a bitter, conspiratorial, dangerous event” and that the desecrations have “created feelings of hatred and enmity” in Muslim nations toward the people burning the Quran and their governments.
In a separate statement, SAPO’s operational manager Fredrik Hallström said Tuesday that the intent of the text messages was to “paint the image of Sweden as an Islamophobic country and create division in society.”
He accused “foreign powers” of seeking to “exploit vulnerabilities” and said they were “now acting more and more aggressively, and this is a development that is likely to escalate.” He did not name any specific country.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, told Swedish news agency TT “that a state actor, in this case Iran, according to (SAPO’s) assessment is behind an action that aims to destabilize Sweden or increase polarization in our country is of course very serious.”
There is no law in Sweden specifically prohibiting the burning or desecration of the Quran or other religious texts. Like many Western countries, Sweden doesn’t have any blasphemy laws.
“Since the actors are acting for a foreign power, in this case Iran, we make the assessment that the conditions for prosecution abroad or extradition to Sweden are lacking for the persons suspected of being behind the breach,“ Ljungqvist said.
Ljungqvist, who is with the Sweden’s top prosecution authority, said that although the preliminary investigation has been closed, it “does not mean that the suspected hackers have been completely written off” and that the probe could be reopened.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — “ Joker ” is a hard act to follow. Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired character study about the Batman villain made over a billion dollars at the box office, won Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a new movie landmark.
It wasn’t for everyone, but it got under people’s skin.
Knowing that it was a fool’s errand to try to do it again, Phillips and Phoenix pivoted, or rather, pirouetted into what would become “ Joker: Folie à Deux.” The dark and fantastical musical journey goes deeper into the mind of Arthur Fleck as he awaits trial for murder and falls in love with a fellow Arkham inmate, Lee, played by Lady Gaga. There is singing, dancing and mayhem.
If Phillips and Phoenix have learned anything over the years, it’s that the scarier something is, the better. So once again they rebelled against expectations and went for broke with something that’s already sharply divided critics.
As with the first, audiences will get to decide for themselves when it opens in theaters on Oct. 4.
“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET JOAQUIN PHOENIX TO DO A SEQUEL?”
Any comic book movie that makes a billion dollars is going to have the sequel talk. But with “Joker” it was never a given that it would go anywhere: Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do sequels. Yet it turned out, Phoenix wasn’t quite done with Arthur Fleck yet either.
During the first, the actor wondered what this character would look like in different situations. He and the on-set photographer mocked up classic movie posters, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Yentl” with the Joker in them and showed them to Phillips.
“Sometimes you’re just done with something and other times you have an ongoing interest,” Phoenix said. “There was just more to explore. … I just felt like we weren’t done.”
So Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver got to work on a new script, one that leaned into the music in Arthur Fleck’s head. Then his dreary Arkham life turns to Technicolor when he meets and falls for Lee, a Joker superfan.
“Joaquin Phoenix is not going to do a line drive. He’s not going to do something that’s fan service,” Phillips said. “He wanted to be as scared as he was with the first movie. So, we tried to make something that is as audacious and out there and hopefully people get it.”
LADY GAGA FINDS LEE’S VOICE, AND LOSES HER OWN
One decision that’s already sparking debate is casting someone with a voice like Lady Gaga’s and not using that instrument to its full power. Phillips, who was a producer on “A Star is Born,” wanted someone who “brought music with them.” But Lee isn’t a singer.
Actor Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips delight in returning to Venice Film Festival with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as Gaga reveals why she sings differently in the eagerly anticipated sequel. (Sept. 5)
“Singing is so second nature to me, and making music and performing on stage is so inside of me. Especially this music,” Gaga said. “I worked extensively on untraining myself for this movie and throwing away as much as I could all the time to make sure I was never locking into what I do. I had to really kind of erase it all.”
Phoenix, who wasn’t quite sure what it would be like working with someone who has such a larger-than-life superstar persona, found Gaga to be refreshingly unpretentious and available. And as an actor, he admired her commitment to the character.
“Her power is in singing and singing a particular way,” he said. “For her to sacrifice that through character, to do something that people would call a musical, but to not be performing it in the way that would sound best as a singer but to approach it from the character was a very difficult process. I was really impressed with her willingness to do that.”
In addition to writing a “waltz that falls apart” for the film, Gaga is releasing a companion album, “Harlequin” on Friday with song titles including “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “That’s Life.”
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
SORRY PUDDIN’, THIS AIN’T MARGOT ROBBIE’S HARLEY QUINN
“We’re never going to outdo what Margot Robbie did,” Phillips said. “You have to do something 180 degrees in the other direction.”
Sure, Lee will still casually light something on fire to get some time alone with Joker, but the tumult is more internal. And Gaga threw herself into making Lee something new: A real person, grounded in a reality that came before her.
“I spent a lot of my time on developing her inner life (which) for me had a lot to do with her storm and what thing was always making her about to explode,” Gaga said. “There’s a particular kind of danger that she carries with her, but it’s inside and it’s kind of explosive.”
“DO YOU JUST WANT A BRUTE?”
Phoenix and Brendan Gleeson, background center, in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Brendan Gleeson didn’t have much hesitation about joining the ensemble. He’d worked with Phoenix before on “The Village” and was in awe of what he’d done on the first movie.
“He has an absolute relentless integrity and curiosity and drive,” Gleeson said. “He won’t just plough the same furrow for its own sake.”
But he also didn’t want to play the simple version of an Arkham prison guard.
“I said, look, do you just want a brute? Because I’m not sure I just want to do a brute,” Gleeson said. “He wanted something more. We tried to find layers in this guy.”
CREATING MAYHEM
Anyone who has worked with Phoenix knows that he likes to keep things fresh. That may mean something as small as changing the location of a prop or as big as throwing out choreography that you’ve been rehearsing for months at the last minute.
“I think we both love mayhem and not just in movies but on the set,” Phillips said. “It had to feel like anything can happen.”
Gaga, director Todd Phillips, and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
With the crew 95% the same as the first, everyone was ready to be flexible. Gaga, too, dove right in, suggesting that they sing live on camera.
“It changed the whole making of the film,” Phillips said. “We were not only singing live, we were singing live differently every take.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
Since Arthur killed Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin on live television in the first film, he’s become a kind of icon and curiosity thanks in no small part to an oft referenced, but never seen, television movie that was made about him. Now, the trial is going to be televised as well.
“Underneath it all, there’s this idea of corruption and how everything is corrupt in the system, from the prison system to the judicial system to the idea of entertainment, quite frankly,” Phillips said. “This idea that in the States at least, everything is entertainment. A court trial could be entertainment, and a presidential election can be entertainment. So, if that’s true, what is entertainment?”
NO LONGER A COMPLETE WILD CARD
It’s easier to be to the insurgent, not the incumbent, Phillips said. Although a Joker film is never going to fly completely under the radar, the spotlight is undoubtedly more intense this time around.
“You do feel like you have a larger target on your back,” Phillips said.
While much of the film was made on Warner Bros. soundstages in Los Angeles, the production did go back to New York to film again on the Bronx staircase (which now come up on Google Maps as the Joker Stairs) and outside a Manhattan courthouse. The production staged a massive protest scene, with Gaga, almost concurrently with the media frenzy around the Donald Trump hush money trial as if there weren’t enough eyes on them already.
Some are also handwringing about the sequel’s bigger budget and whether it can match the success of the first. But Phillips has learned to take it in stride.
“There’s a different amount of pressure, but that just comes with making movies,” he said. “You can’t please everybody and you just kind of go for it.”
Gleeson has an even sunnier outlook.
“It has kind of arthouse movie integrity on a blockbuster scale. It’s great news for cinema, is the way I look on it,” Gleeson said. “If these event movies can continue to have depth and can be so conflicting like this one, is we needn’t worry about the future of cinema.”
SO, IS IT A MUSICAL?
Phoenix and Lady Gaga in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
One thing Phillips didn’t mean to do was ignite a discourse about what is and isn’t a musical. He’s just trying to manage expectations.
“People go, ‘what do you mean it’s not a musical?’ And it is a musical. It has all the elements of a musical. But I guess what I mean by it is all the musicals I’ve seen leave me happy at the end for the most part, ‘Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ not being one of them. This has so much sadness in it that I just didn’t want to be misleading to people.”
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Treasurer Jim Chalmers will this week become the first Australian government minister in that key economic role to visit China in seven years, in the latest sign that strained bilateral relations are mending.
Chalmers flies to Beijing on Thursday for a two-day visit. The last Australian treasurer to visit China was Scott Morrison in 2017.
Morrison rose to become prime minister a year later and bilateral relations further soured under his rule until his conservative government was replaced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party after the 2022 general election.
Chalmers said Wednesday that the main purpose of his visit was to co-chair the Australia-China Strategic Economic Dialogue on Thursday with Zheng Shanjie, chair of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
Discussions will focus on growing trade and investment with China and opportunities for Australian and Chinese businesses to cooperate, government documents say.
“This is another really important step towards stabilizing our economic relationship with China,” Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane.
“It will be part of the Albanese government‘s methodical and coordinated efforts to reestablish dialogue with China, Australia’s largest trading partner,” Chalmers added.
The dialogue was last held in 2017.
The bilateral relationship plumbed new depths in 2020 after the Morrison government called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China imposed a series of official and unofficial bans in 2020 on Australian products, including coal, cotton, wine, barley, beef, lobsters and wood that cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.
Most of those trade obstacles have been removed since the conservative government was ousted after nine years in office.
In November, Albanese became the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years. In June, Li Qiang became the first Chinese premier to visit Australia in seven years.
But Australia remains wary of China as a trading partner despite improving relations and is keen forge closer economic ties to the world’s most populous nation, India.
Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal met with his Australian counterpart Don Farrell in Australia on Wednesday to discuss progress on a new bilateral free trade deal that furthers a 2022 pact.
“As a testimony of the importance that the Australia relationship is to India, we are looking at significantly upscaling our partnerships in trade, investment, tourism and technology and therefore one of the first announcements I’d like to make is that we shall shortly be setting up in Sydney an office covering all these four areas,” Goyal told reporters in Farrell’s hometown of Adelaide.
