News and stories from all over the world

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Queen’s ‘keenness’ for Andrew to be trade envoy was a grave mistake
Caroline Davies
Thu 21 May 2026 16.22 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.42 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/21/queen-elizabeth-andrew-mountbatten-windsor-trade-envoy

That Queen Elizabeth II was “very keen” for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to take on a “prominent role in the promotion of national interests” as a trade envoy in 2001 demonstrates the fierce support the late monarch always gave her second son.

Knowing he was “the spare”, and undoubtedly acutely aware of the pitfalls of that position – her sister, Princess Margaret, had struggled to find her own role – a mother’s instinct would be to protect, so far as she could.

Presumably, she believed it would give the then Prince Andrew structure and purpose as he was steadily bumped down the line of succession, as well as highlighting the family’s own royal brand of usefulness to the country.

After a Royal Navy career, during which he even briefly enjoyed “national hero” status, posing with a rose on his return from combat in the Falklands, it could offer him direction away from the luxury yacht parties and golf courses. How wrong she was.

Royal commentators have long espoused the theory that when it came to Andrew, the late queen was blinkered. It is rumoured he was her favourite son. Perhaps he was.

What is quite evident, however, is that he was the first of her four children she was able to spend more time with as infants. When Charles and Anne were born, she was undertaking many engagements on behalf of her ailing father, George VI. On his death, she was dealing with the stresses of being a young mother and a monarch. Overseas engagements kept her away from the royal nursery for extended periods.

When Andrew was born, having settled into her position she was able to spend more time with him, cutting back on evening engagements, sometimes taking charge of bedtimes. A closer maternal bond, perhaps, was formed with Andrew and then his brother Edward.

As he grew older, it was evident, too, that the former Duke of York’s character was very different to that of his older brother, Charles. He was, according to the royal biographer Robert Hardman, “not as bright as the others, he could be boorish and everyone knew that”. His mother saw him as “vulnerable”, and continued to shield him.

Her support for him was made public in many seemingly small but nevertheless significant gestures.

Two days after the immediate fallout from that car-crash Newsnight interview in November 2019, when he spectacularly failed to quell concerns about his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein , she went out riding her horse around the grounds of Windsor Castle. Mountbatten-Windsor was at her side.

She would have been aware of the possibility they would be photographed. She was savvy enough to know those photographs would be interpreted as tacit support for her beleaguered third-born.

After she gave him permission to step down as a working member of the royal family, even after he was stripped of his military affiliations and patronages, there would still be invitations to family Christmases at Sandringham and picnics at Balmoral. Royal blood is thicker than public ire.

It has been widely reported that she contributed to the substantial 2022 settlement he reached with Virginia Giuffre, his accuser. Two months later, at the memorial service for his father, Prince Philip, it was Mountbatten-Windsor’s arm she leaned on as he escorted her into Westminster Abbey.

It would, ultimately, be left to Charles to strip his sibling of his peerage, his prince’s title and his HRH style.

Books
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly audiobook review – smart reflections on love, desire and power
Fiona Sturges
Thu 21 May 2026 16.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/21/kingfisher-by-rozie-kelly-audiobook-review-smart-reflections-on-love-desire-and-power

T he debut novel from Rozie Kelly – shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction – charts an unusual relationship between two writers. The story is told through the eyes of an unnamed man who works as a creative writing academic. He becomes infatuated with an Irish woman, whom he calls “the poet”, 17 years older than him and a celebrated author. The pair begin meeting for lunch on a bench by a river where they talk and watch the wildlife (she specialises in stories about birds). He observes how this woman “smells like jasmine. No, not exactly. She smelled like the earth beneath a jasmine pot on a hot day.”

Our protagonist pursues her – his early thoughts about her are wilfully crude – despite being in a long-term relationship with Michael, a gym owner with whom he has little in common. He longs to achieve the success that the poet has attained, observing: “She was in high demand. I was a beggar. I knew she had a purse full of gold, if only I could get close enough to cut the strings.”

Their relationship moves into more complex territory when she becomes ill with breast cancer, and he takes on caring duties. His willingness to look after her takes him by surprise, and contrasts with his dealings with his ailing mother, Hetty, who has long taken a dim view of her son’s homosexuality.

Dan Bottomley is the narrator who deftly guides us through Kelly’s smart reflections on love, desire and power. Kingfisher not only offers a new perspective on age-gap relationships, it shows the long-term damage that can be inflicted by a parent on their child.

Available via WF Howes, 6hr 1min

Further listening

Boleyn Traitor Philippa Gregory, HarperCollins, 19hr 29min Gemma Whelan narrates Gregory’s gripping story of Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law Jane, an aristocrat who, against all odds, managed remained in the Tudor court and served five queens, leading to multiple accusations of traitorous behaviour.

We Did OK, Kid Anthony Hopkins, Simon & Schuster, 9hr 5min Kenneth Branagh reads the Welsh actor’s unvarnished memoir, in which he recalls his storied career and reflects on his struggles with anxiety and alcoholism, his estrangement from his daughter and his acute discomfort with fame.

Péter Magyar
Hungary to limit prime ministers to maximum eight-year terms
Ashifa Kassam
Thu 21 May 2026 16.53 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.55 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/hungary-limit-prime-ministers-maximum-eight-year-terms-magyar-orban

Hungary’s new government, led by Péter Magyar, has put forward a constitutional amendment that would limit prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office, effectively barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role.

The draft amendment was submitted on Wednesday, just over a week after the new government took office. It marked Magyar and his Tisza party’s first step in dismantling a constitution that was unilaterally rewritten and amended more than a dozen times as Orbán and his Fidesz party worked to turn Hungary into a “petri dish for illiberalism”.

During Magyar’s more than two years on the campaign trail, he repeatedly promised to bring in term limits, describing them as part of a wider push to restore the country’s democratic checks and balances.

As his party celebrated its landslide victory in last month’s election, analysts were swift to say that the new government faces a formidable task in rebuilding the country’s crumbling public services and stagnant economy, one compounded by the many Fidesz loyalists who remain in the state, media and judiciary.

The draft amendment appeared to attempt to ward off the threat of Orbán seizing on the situation to mount a comeback, noting that term limits were “essential” to restoring the rule of law. “A person who has served as prime minister, for a total of at least eight years, including any interruptions, may not be elected as prime minister,” it noted.

The calculation would apply to all prime ministerial terms held since the country’s democratisation in 1990, meaning that Orbán, who had served five terms as prime minister since 1998 – totalling 20 years in power – would be barred. The amendment, however, is far from foolproof, as any future leader with a two-thirds or supermajority could submit an amendment to extend their time in power.

Another line in the draft amendment, which is expected to pass given Tisza’s own supermajority in parliament, paves the way for the dissolution of the controversial sovereignty protection office.

Launched during Orbán’s last years in power, the office was widely accused of seeking to quell critics of his government by allowing Hungary’s intelligence services to access information on individuals and organisations without judicial oversight.

As the new government races to unlock billions in frozen EU funds, the draft amendment also addresses a longstanding point of friction with the bloc by reclaiming the foundations that, during Orbán’s time, were used to maintain nearly two dozen universities and thinktanks such as the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.

During the previous government, the foundations’ board of trustees – many of them stacked with Orbán loyalists – had been handed complete control over these assets. The result, as the draft amendment noted, had “eliminated democratic control” over these public assets and resulted in an “abuse of legislative power”.

The proposal set out that the state could potentially dissolve these foundations. “The amendment makes it clear that although the foundations … are private entities, their assets are national assets,” it said.

The draft amendment is expected to be discussed next week when the national assembly convenes.

In the weeks since his election victory, Magyar has sought to emphasise his government’s break from the past, vowing to suspend broadcasts from state media that functioned as Orbán mouthpieces, calling on Orbán-era appointees to resign, and apologising to the teachers, journalists and public figures who had been maligned by the state during Orbán’s time in power.

His government has also made clear that this stark shift also applies to foreign relations. In mid-May the new foreign minister, Anita Orbán, said she had summoned Russia’s ambassador to Hungary over a massive drone attack in Ukraine, marking a reversal of her predecessor’s seemingly servile relations with Moscow.

She said on social media: “I told the Russian ambassador that it was completely unacceptable for Hungary that they were now attacking Transcarpathia, home of the Hungarian minority. I stressed that Russia should do everything for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful and lasting end to the war as soon as possible.”

Inflatable bridge and a hot couple: photos of the day – Thursday

Thu 21 May 2026 15.30 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2026/may/21/inflatable-bridge-and-a-hot-couple-photos-of-the-day-thursday

SpaceX
The main takeaways from Elon Musk’s plans for $1.75tn SpaceX flotation
Dan Milmo
Thu 21 May 2026 15.46 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.51 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/21/elon-musk-trillion-dollar-spacex-flotation-takeaways

Prospectus for tycoon’s sprawling empire reveals his plan to keep control – and ambition to colonise Mars

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has revealed plans for a highly anticipated $1.75tn (£1.3tn) flotation next month as he seeks investor backing for his quest to make life “multiplanetary”.

ificial intelligence startup and the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

SpaceX is a sprawling business, encompassing the eponymous rocket launch company, the Starlink satellite broadband service, Musk’s xAI

Details about these businesses and Musk’s ambitions for them were laid out in a flotation prospectus . Here are some of the main takeaways from it.

1. SpaceX is loss-making

The entire business lost $4.9bn in 2025 on revenues of $18.7bn. Revenue is growing, however, rising by a third on 2024. SpaceX’s losses have widened since the start of the year, losing $4.3bn in the first quarter, compared with a loss of $528m in the same period last year.

The company is split into three segments: space, which incorporates the rocket launch business whose clients include Nasa; connectivity, which houses Starlink; and AI, the unit behind xAI and the X platform. Connectivity makes the most revenue, at $11.4bn, followed by space with $4.1bn and AI at $3.2bn. The Starlink unit was the only profitable segment in the first three months of this year.

The AI unit is heavily loss making, losing $6.4bn last year, which reflected factors such as higher computing expenses (for instance to build and operate the AI models that power Musk’s Grok tool).

Capital expenditure was $20.7bn, with the xAI unit again showing itself to be a big cost centre. It accounted for $12.7bn of the total, primarily due to the cost of building massive datacentres. SpaceX has built the appropriately named Colossus datacentre.

2. Mars ambitions

There are some extraterrestrial aspirations in the document that are not found in the average flotation prospectus. The section marked “future markets” includes the following: space tourism; energy production and manufacturing on the moon and Mars; and asteroid mining.

The prospectus acknowledges these markets “do not exist today”.

“While we believe these industries will develop over time, the manner in which they emerge, including the timing of commercialisation, the scale and pace of adoption, and the applicable competitive, technical, regulatory, geopolitical, and economic frameworks may differ materially from our current expectations,” the document says, deploying the classic understatement of stock market legalese.

But it is classic Musk to aim for the impossible.

A more immediate ambition is datacentres in space, or “orbital compute” as the document describes it, powered by solar energy. If manufacturing on Mars is a long-term aim, this one is relatively short-term. The prospectus says it expects to launch extraterrestrial datacentres as soon as 2028.

3. Musk will have 85% control of the business

The world’s richest person and chief executive of SpaceX will control just over 85% of the voting power in the business, making it extremely difficult to unseat him from the company.

Musk’s control will be derived from majority ownership of a type of stock known as class B, which carries much more heft than the class A stock that everyone else will own. In shareholder votes, each holder of class B gets 10 votes per share. Musk will be very much in control.

4. Musk is in line to get even richer

Musk, who is already worth about $676bn – more than double his nearest rival, the Oracle founder, Larry Page – stands to make a vast sum from SpaceX although the exact amount is unclear and there is quite the caveat to his maximum earnings.

According to the prospectus, he has been granted 1bn class B shares that vest – meaning, Musk gets full ownership of them – if SpaceX manages to achieve the “establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants”. As well as colonising Mars, in order for those shares to vest he must always meet a number of market cap targets, referring to the total value of a company’s shares. Those targets stretch as far as getting the market cap to $7.5tn. Which is more than the combined economic output of the UK and Italy.

Musk was also granted another tranche of B shares in March. These 302m shares vest if he hits targets including the completion of space-based datacentres delivering 100 terawatts of compute a year.

Musk’s base salary, unchanged since 2019, is $54,000 a year. He famously bid $54.20 a share for Twitter in 2022, leading to speculation that he was referring to the slang term for cannabis, “420” .

Film
‘I have a lot of rage inside me’: Bob Odenkirk on Saul, satire and his heart attack
Rich Pelley
Thu 21 May 2026 15.14 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.59 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/21/bob-odenkirk-interview-better-call-saul-satire-heart-attack

You recently agreed in an interview that “ life is a meaningless farce ”. How come? benpendrey Oh, I don’t know. You need to talk to God about that. I don’t know why he made it so ridiculous, but it is. I’m not done asking questions and trying to figure things out, but I do think we’re going to end up where Douglas Adams did.

Is biting satire more powerful than political hogwash? Twist27 I sure wish it was, but no. I do think political satire is helpful, but it is not as important as we all wished it was. I’m afraid political satire pales in comparison to political hogwash, as we’re witnessing in my country.

Did working with someone as cool as Henry Winkler in your new film, Normal , help unleash your inner Fonz? greencorn Well, in Normal, Henry Winkler’s character is not cool. Henry himself is the sweetest guy alive. If he unleashed anything in me, he unleashed the desire to be as kind, generous and friendly as he finds his way to be in the world every day. And that’s not easy to do. It’s a choice to meet the world’s annoyances and frustrations with the patience and kindness that he does. He’s a special guy, so I’m glad I got him to play such a jerk who gets his comeuppance.

Have you taken over Liam Neeson’s mantle as our favourite action hero? teabags12 No. Liam Neeson still owns that space. I am the Bob Odenkirk of action movie stars.

What made you choose to reinvent yourself as an action hero rather than settle down into cushy rom coms? johnnyhatesjazz That’s a good question. I’m 63 years old, and there aren’t a lot of romcoms written for my generation. I like action movies. I have a lot of rage inside me that I get to play out. It started as a joke, but through some massive cock-up, I’ve somehow pulled it off.

Did you get to keep the Saul Goodman outfits? tentshopper A lot of Saul’s suits and ties were made for Saul only. They offered me stuff, but I don’t wear suits, so I kept the ties.

How does Saul’s position on the immoral spectrum compare with your own encounters of immorality? snazpizaz2 Saul’s actually a very earnest guy. He’s aware that he has an ability to talk people into things, and talk his way out of things. The sad thing is that he can’t think of a better use for it than to become a conman, because he has a resentment inside him that drives him to use his talents in a destructive way.

If Jimmy McGill somehow cut a deal and got out of prison right now, what do you think his next move would be? Jcjcjc1234 Even though he’s been put through a lot, I think he would go right back to doing what he did, only he’d probably avoid dealing with drug dealers this time.

How is your album coming along? Piccolo76 It’s coming along great. We’ve got seven songs recorded. They were written by Mark Nutter, who writes comic musicals, so they’re sort of comedy Broadway songs called things like Your Fake Breasts Haunt Me.

Which was tougher: taking on the famous 96-mile West Highland Way trail in Scotland, which you walked with your daughter in 2015, o r tackling the four-day, 27-mile Inca Trail with fellow actor and comedian David Cross for your upcoming Bob and David Climb Machu Picchu documentary? KrissiNamibia and left4dead The Inca Trail was way harder. The West Highland Way was fairly placid compared with the Inca Trail, which goes to 13,800ft (4,200 metres) and you’re constantly climbing up or down. The stairs are all different heights, so you have to pay attention to each footfall or you could twist an ankle.

I think you should have won an Oscar for your performance in 2013’s Nebraska . Do you agree? GhostieRidesAgain Well, I don’t think they should give Oscars for roles that small, but I appreciate the compliment. My favourite thing about that film was sitting with Bruce Dern in the diner attached to the hotel, listening to him tell stories about his life as an actor. Many of those stories are in his autobiography, so if you’re envious that I got to sit with that great man and hear his tales, you can pick up the book and hear them yourself.

Would you do Shakespeare? Kevtb1987 I have read a lot about Shakespeare. I find him funny and fascinating. I have not read a lot of Shakespeare. I have not seen much Shakespeare. But I would like to have a go, just to make myself suffer.

Who are your top three favourite other Bobs? Dr_J_A_Zoidberg Bob Newhart. Bob Elliott, from the 1950s American comedy duo Bob and Ray. And let’s go with Robert De Niro, although I don’t know him well enough to call him Bob.

If you could play any Kevin Costner role, which one would you choose? Yash01 Oh – because of the resemblance, facially? I used to get it a lot because I looked more like him when I was younger. I’ll say Field of Dreams.

How did you keep going after your on-set heart attack, on Better Call Saul in 2021 ? Did it make you want to quit acting and live a quiet life? JamesM1999 That’s a very good question, because it kind of did. I did keep going and chose to work, but I’m not going to keep working at the same level. It made me think how fragile life is, and how hard it is to appreciate life when you’re over-scheduled. When you’ve got too many responsibilities and too much to do, you can’t appreciate each thing you do. You just have to move quickly to the next thing. I don’t like that.

If that heart attack gave me any gift, it was the realisation that I didn’t want to carry on that way, so now I am slowing down. The thing is, I had signed up to a lot of responsibilities before I had that heart attack. I had years of projects to follow through on. But now, I’m just going to go to Paris with my wife and do fuck all.

Normal is in cinemas now

Social care
More than 100 young care leavers in England died in past year, data shows
Diane Taylor
Thu 21 May 2026 15.07 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 15.55 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/21/care-leavers-deaths-social-services-england-review

More than 100 young people have died after leaving the care of social services in England in the past year, according to data released by the government.

In the year to April 2026 there were 106 reported deaths of care leavers, with 91 deaths reported in the 12 months before. Most of those who died were aged 16 to 21.

Although a requirement to report these deaths was introduced in 2023, ministers believe the true figure is probably higher.

Labour launched an urgent review into the deaths in April to try to identify where support systems may have failed. Announcing the review, the government said it was a “horrifying fact” that a disproportionate number of people who had been in care died young, often not having had appropriate support.

In 2025, 81,770 children in England were under the care of local authorities.

The latest deaths of young care leavers, released on Thursday, include transgender people, young women who gave birth and had their babies removed from them by social services, and young unaccompanied asylum seekers.

Many deaths were not a result of natural causes. They include Samare Gerezgihir , 23, from Eritrea and Issa Ali Musa Abdulrahman Barakat , 18, from Chad, who were stabbed to death in 2024, and Ahmad Mamdouh Al Ibrahim , 16, an unaccompanied child asylum seeker, who was murdered in 2025.

Two-thirds of children and young people in the care system have been abused or neglected by their primary carer. Until December 2023 local authorities were not required to report deaths of care leavers. They must now report them through the serious incident notification system.

Benny Hunter, a co-founder and research lead at Da’aro Youth Project, which works with young unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees mainly from eastern Africa and has documented some of their untimely deaths , said the figures were “unspeakably tragic”.

He added: “Following our intervention in 2021, the government agreed to start asking local authorities to tell them when a care leaver dies, so that they could start counting these deaths for the first time.

“Care leavers are some of the most vulnerable young people in society. At present, there is no process in place that would allow for lessons to be learned when a care leaver dies while in receipt of statutory support from a local authority.

“When a care leaver dies, the important questions about the circumstances of their life and the support they were receiving do not get asked.

“It is important that the government now takes action to ensure every care leaver death results in a statutory review and a properly informed inquest, so that lessons are always learned and future deaths may be prevented.”

Evie’s story

Evie was a care leaver who died aged 19 after taking an overdose at her grandparents’ home in June 2024. A review into her death last August found there could be a “cliff edge” in the transition between services for young people like her after they turn 18.

Although she had disclosed suicidal thoughts, there was declining adult safeguarding support for her. She had a traumatic and abusive relationship with her mother and as a teenager managed caring responsibilities for her mum, who later died, causing Evie enormous anxiety.

Despite telling some professionals about her suicidal thoughts, this information was not adequately communicated to others involved in her care. Her housing provider was not aware of safeguarding concerns or the care and support Evie needed.

Professionals who worked with her described her as a “wonderful, charismatic girl”. In a tribute after her death, friends and family said: “Best sister, best auntie, best friend, best daughter and best person. Evie you brought so much joy to people, not only those close to you.”

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Jamaica
‘It’s broken English’: MP’s attempt to speak Jamaican in parliament sparks language row
Natricia Duncan
Thu 21 May 2026 14.38 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.20 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/may/21/jamaica-parliament-language-english-patois

When the Jamaican MP Nekeisha Burchell stood up to give her maiden speech, she was keenly aware of how much her country’s parliament mirrored the Westminster version thousands of miles away in London.

As in the UK, the session on 12 May had started with the arrival of the ceremonial mace – a 1.7-metre ornamented silver staff representing the British monarch’s authority over parliament – which now rested on a table between the government and the opposition. Despite the heat outside, debate was presided over by the speaker dressed in a ceremonial robe.

Burchell, the opposition spokesperson for culture, creative industries and information, approached the microphone and began to speak. “Madam speaka, mi git up dis afta noon fi mek mi fuss sectoral speech, pan me portfolio …”

The speaker, Juliet Holness, immediately cut her off. “Hold on, hold on, hold on! Standing orders, and I think you are fully aware,” said Holness, who is the wife of Jamaica’s prime minister.

The regulation to which Holness referred was the rule that only English – and certainly not Jamaican – is allowed in parliament. “If I have to stop you again during your presentation, you will not get any additional time,” Holness told Burchell as parliament erupted into protest, with someone chiding “broken English”.

Burchell had ignited an explosive debate across the country and beyond about the enduring legacy of British colonialism and whether robes, prayers for the British monarch and the “king’s English” are still right for Jamaica, more than 60 years after it gained independence.

Burchell continued her speech in standard English. “Madam speaker, perhaps I should abandon that attempt to use our local language because I have been reminded of the linguistic conventions of this honourable house,” she said.

“Because maybe there is no more fitting way to begin a presentation on culture than to speak briefly in the language understood by the overwhelming majority of Jamaican people – even if that language still struggles for full acceptance in some of our most formal national spaces, including this very parliament.”

Speaking to the Guardian this week, Burchell said: “The moment really exposed unresolved tensions around language, legitimacy and postcolonial identity.”

She said it was not her intention to disrespect parliament or cause disorder. “For me, the question is not whether parliament should have rules. Of course it should. The intention was to disrupt the comfort zone we have found ourselves in.

“We have gotten comfortable with keeping things like the prayer we say before parliament starts every single week … We’re saying these words that we don’t understand. We’re still wearing these wigs and these robes in a hot climate like Jamaica, because we are still keeping these models.”

Burchell said her intervention was not meant to be “anti-British” or “anti-English” but was more about Jamaica’s cultural confidence.

“Jamaica’s language has become one of the most globally recognisable cultural expressions to come out of the Caribbean . Through reggae, dancehall, athletics, popular culture, people across the world recognise the rhythm, energy, boldness, humour [and] the emotional texture of our language. And I think that’s part of why this conversation resonated internationally,” she said.

Marlon Morgan, the parliamentary secretary in Jamaica’s ministry of education skills, youth and information, said the issue was not about the appreciation of the Jamaican language. “There are persons who may conflate what happened in parliament with a lack of appreciation for the Jamaican language, and that should not be the case,” he said.

Morgan said Burchell could have sought permission to suspend the requirement to speak English, arguing that any permanent change to allow the Jamaican language in parliament should be part of a “thoughtful and consultative approach”. “What we shouldn’t have is for this discussion to be approached in an arbitrary or capricious manner,” he said.

On the streets of Kingston, the matter has split public opinion. Juliette Blake, an attorney, said “rules should govern”, but Danea Dunkley, an event project manager, pointed to the parliamentary bodies in Wales and New Zealand, which allow indigenous languages. She said the issue “raises the question that every postcolonial society must sit with at some point: whose language is legitimate and what spaces can they be used in?”

Prof Carolyn Cooper, a literary scholar, was one of several Jamaican academics to support Burchell’s intervention. On Friday, Cooper interviewed Burchell entirely in Jamaican on the University of the West Indies (UWI) YouTube platform.

“ I describe our language as Jamaican. Not Jamaican Patois, not Jamaican Creole, not dialect, none of those. Jamaican! Just like French, Spanish, English, German and any other language,” Cooper said.

“I think the problem is that we don’t recognise Jamaican as a language, because if we did, Jamaica would be officially bilingual,” she said, adding there was a widespread perception that Jamaican was not a language in itself.

“That is still the perception of the Jamaican language, that it is a broken version of English, meaning that it’s a corruption – we couldn’t learn it properly, so we twisted it,” she said.

According to Dr Joseph Farquharson, a coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) at UWI, Jamaican “has all of the features, all of the characteristics or properties of a language”.

The language has a complex history, coming not only “out of European imperial expansion and colonialism” but also from other languages and dialects, he said.

“Jamaican is like several other languages referred to as creole languages. Those languages emerged in the context of Atlantic plantation slavery out of the interaction between Europeans and Africans, mostly west Africans,” Farquharson said.

On the campaign trail, Jamaican politicians normally use Jamaican, and the 2005 language attitude survey of Jamaica suggested most Jamaicans recognised “Patwa” as a language and thought it should be made an official language alongside English, he noted.

“Nobody has suggested getting rid of English. What is being suggested is that we make a space for the language that most Jamaicans use and understand.”

The JLU acted as a language consultant for the Jamaican translation of the New Testament, which is being used in some churches in Jamaica.

Sonjah Stanley Niaah, the director for UWI’s Centre for Reparation Research , described the parliamentary rule of speaking English only as a “direct legacy of enslavement”.

She said: “It is surprising that, in a parliament with intentions to petition the king of England for a response in relation to whether enslavement of Africans was a crime against humanity, in a country which has a ministry of culture charting the reparation agenda, that such a negative response to the use of Jamaican was upheld.”

San Diego mosque shooting
San Diego shooting shows disturbing trend of shooters copying acts of violence
Abené Clayton
Thu 21 May 2026 16.00 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 16.20 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/21/san-diego-mosque-shooting-violence

The killing of three men at a San Diego mosque on Monday is the latest example of a disturbing trend in recent decades: hate-motivated shooters learning from – and copying – each other in acts of violence meant to push the nation toward a race war and, ultimately, societal collapse.

The two San Diego shooters, who were 17 and 18, killed 51-year-old Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the Islamic Center of San Diego, 78-year-old Mansour Kaziha, a mosque elder and founding member of the center, and Nadir Awad, 57, who lived across the street and whose wife worked as a teacher at the center’s school.

The shooters later died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

The pair appears to have been deeply entrenched in online extremist networks and looked up to shooters who have killed dozens of people in US places of worship, schools and grocery stores. In a 75-page document the shooters wrote before Monday’s attack, they expressed hatred for Muslim and Jewish people, for Black people, the LGBTQ+ community, women, and for both political parties in the US.

In addition to the document spelling out their extremist views, they also livestreamed their violence and wrote on their firearms in white marker – all common tactics among shooters who have been radicalized online, said Matthew Kriner, executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, which has been investigating the shooters’ digital footprint to understand a possible motive for the attack.

“Preliminarily, we’re seeing two individuals who jointly radicalized into this digital space and then jointly radicalized into this moment of violence,” Kriner said.

In a Tuesday briefing, JD Vance, the vice-president, decried the shooting as “reprehensible”.

“The principle of religious violence is particularly disgusting, especially in the United States of America,” he said. “And as a devout Christian, I would say it’s one of the most anti-Christian things and anti-American things that you could do.”

After the killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah in September, and assassination attempts on Donald Trump’s life, the president, his administration and their allies have said rhetoric from Democrats and the left is catalyzing political and extremist violence.

Earlier this month, the White House released its counter-terrorism strategy , which said the biggest threats of domestic terror and violence come from “Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs, Legacy Islamist Terrorists and Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists”.

Experts say there is a growing body of research showing that recent high-profile shootings in the US are mostly committed by people heavily influenced by online spaces, where traditional political divides are largely irrelevant.

The counter-terrorism strategy also made no mention of white supremacist violence or young people who are being radicalized online, even though federal officials have previously acknowledged the risks these networks pose.

In the past year, researchers and the FBI have also warned of an increase in nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), which the federal government describes as violence “motivated by a hatred of society and a drive to cause its collapse through indiscriminate chaos”.

It’s unclear how many high-profile shootings are tied to this specific brand of hate. But in February the FBI said it was investigating at least 350 people across the US who it believes are connected to NVE networks that are extorting vulnerable young people into acts of terrorism and sexual violence.

Last March, the FBI released a notice warning against groups that radicalize young people toward hate-motivated violence and use “threats, blackmail, and manipulation” to coerce them into acts of violence against themselves or the public. And in March this year, the US attorney for the central district of Illinois issued a press release about how these groups were continuing to use “digital platforms to exploit and radicalize children”.

In their manifesto, the San Diego shooters both frequently refer to the man who shot and killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand in 2019. Kriner said this shows that many violent extremists are not tied to conventional political beliefs, but instead are adopting the ideology of other shooters before them.

The 23-year-old who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 was inspired by the two Columbine high school shooters. Nearly a decade later in 2016, authorities found a book about the Virginia Tech and Columbine shooters in the bedroom of an 18-year-old German man who shot and killed nine people at a Munich shopping mall.

The 18-year-old who shot and killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 had been inspired by the Christchurch shooter three years prior, as well as the shooters at an El Paso, Walmart and a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The gunman who killed two children at the Annunciation Catholic school in Minneapolis last August expressed admiration for the 28-year-old shooter who killed three children and three adults at a school in Nashville, two years before.

Kriner said most high-profile extremist shooters were not constrained by traditional political binaries such as Democrat or Republican. Instead, their views are a mashup of fascist ideals and a feeling that the world has fallen into such a state of disrepair that extreme violent action must be taken.

“The core belief of doing something, taking action, appeals across social, racial, economic and national lines,” Kriner said. “It makes it hard for us to find the motivating factor because everything becomes a factor.”

US news
Passenger from Congo boards flight ‘in error’, prompting diversion to Canada amid Ebola outbreak
Anna Betts
Thu 21 May 2026 15.47 CESTLast modified on Thu 21 May 2026 15.59 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/21/congo-canada-passenger-flight-diversion-ebola

An Air France flight headed to Detroit, Michigan, was redirected to Canada on Wednesday after it was determined that a passenger from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had boarded “in error” amid new Ebola -related travel restrictions, officials with the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said.

“Due to entry restrictions put in place to reduce the risk of the Ebola virus, the passenger should not have boarded the plane,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement.

“CBP took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveler from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne county airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal, Canada.”

The spokesperson added that CBP, in coordination with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “is taking the necessary measures to protect public health and reduce the risk of Ebola disease introduction into the United States”.

On Monday, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented temporary measures aimed at preventing the Ebola disease from entering the US amid ongoing outbreaks in east and central Africa. The measures include enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions and additional public health protocols.

Among the new rules are entry restrictions for non-US passport holders who have been in “Uganda, DRC or South Sudan in the previous 21 days”. The order is in effect for 30 days, according to the announcement.

The DHS will implement further entry restrictions beginning on Thursday for foreign travellers arriving to the US from countries at the center of the outbreak. In a DHS notice submitted to the Federal Register, expected to be published on Thursday, the department states all US-bound flights carrying foreign travelers who have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the last 21 days must land at Washington-Dulles international airport in Virginia, “where the US government is focusing public health resources to implement enhanced public health measures”.

On Wednesday, the director-general of the World Health Organization said that so far, there had been almost 600 suspected cases of Ebola and 139 suspected deaths, warning that the numbers were expected to rise. The director-general said that 51 cases had been confirmed in the DRC, “although we know the scale of the epidemic in DRC is much larger”. Uganda has also confirmed two cases, he said.

During his remarks, the director-general also said that an American citizen who was working in the DRC had also been confirmed positive and had been transferred to Germany.