Month: June 2021

MOSUL, Iraq — The palm trees were the last straw. In a UNESCO competition to restore Mosul’s most famous landmarks, there they were, in the winning design. Neither the palms nor the Gulf-style design are indigenous to the historic city, Iraqi architects complained.

At stake were not only the $50,000 award and the contract for a final design — which was funded by the United Arab Emirates and went to an Egyptian architectural team — but, seemingly, the pride of Iraq’s second-largest city, which was rising from the rubble of its battle against the Islamic State four years ago.

“It’s

LONDON — Britain’s embattled health minister, Matt Hancock, resigned on Saturday, a day after a tabloid newspaper published photos of him in a steamy embrace with one of his senior aides — an apparent violation of Britain’s social-distancing guidelines.

Mr. Hancock, who spearheaded Britain’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, was the latest member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to be accused of violating the strict rules imposed on the rest of the country.

“I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made — that you have made,” a chastened-looking Mr. Hancock said in a video statement

MUSKOWEKWAN FIRST NATION, Saskatchewan — At age 6, Ken Thomas said he was put in a van, driven two hours from his home and dropped on the steps of the Muskowekwan Indian Residential School. The nuns immediately shaved off his braids, and he soon learned that whenever he spoke his Indigenous language they would wash out his mouth with soap.

During his 10 years there he experienced many more searing horrors. He recalled a friend committing suicide after being stripped naked and locked into a dorm after trying to escape. Mr. Thomas and the other boys found their friend hanging

Officials in Sydney announced on Saturday that Australia’s largest city would enter a full lockdown until July 9 as an outbreak linked to the Delta variant continued to grow.

The decision expands a partial lockdown ordered a day earlier, when Sydney’s central business district and eastern suburbs were ordered to close for at least a week.

Officials in New South Wales, which includes Sydney and is Australia’s most populous state, announced an additional 22 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of cases to 65, the city’s largest outbreak in six months. They warned that many more cases were likely

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The past few weeks has found me either wrapped in thermals and a blanket or working from my bed with my laptop balanced on my lap because it’s really cold in my apartment.

It’s not so much a new realization as it is something else the pandemic has thrown into sharp relief (along with existing inequalities, our country’s reliance on migration and international travel, etc.). It wasn’t until I was spending most of my days working from home, in a room with

The rigors of protecting a president, a vice president and their families in an election year amid a pandemic placed a heavy burden on the Secret Service, with nearly 900 employees testing positive for the coronavirus, a watchdog group said this week.

The group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, faulted former President Donald J. Trump for continuing to hold large campaign rallies, which it said had contributed to the infections.

It obtained the Secret Service data from the federal government as part of a public records request under the Freedom of Information Act. The cases were recorded