General news

• United outclass Ajax to win Europa League on emotional night

  24-05-2017 23:56
  
  By Philip O'Connor and Richard MartinSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Manchester United's Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored a goal in each half as their team comfortably outclassed Ajax Amsterdam to win an emotional Europa League final 2-0 and qualify for the group stages of the Champions League.A minute's silence held for the victims of Monday's suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester in which 22 people died turned into applause as chants of "Manchester" and "We'll Never Die" bellowed out fr
  
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• Petr Cech set to keep Arsenal place for FA Cup final amid defensive headaches

  24-05-2017 23:46 via theguardian.com
  
  • Arsène Wenger hints first-choice goalkeeper may play ahead of David Ospina
  • Shkodran Mustafi and Kieran Gibbs both doubtful as injury worries mountArsène Wenger has hinted that Petr Cech will start in goal for Arsenal in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Chelsea rather than David Ospina and the manager admitted Kieran Gibbs was an injury doubt, deepening his defensive selection crisis.Wenger played Ospina, his second-choice goalkeeper, in all eight of the club&rsqu
  
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• England players could face New Zealand in autumn Barbarians game

  24-05-2017 23:45 via theguardian.com
  
  • Barbarians would give England players useful experience against All Blacks
  • Alex Goode believes he can still force his way into Eddie Jones’s plansA number of England players could face New Zealand at Twickenham this autumn after all with the Barbarians hopeful Eddie Jones will agree to release a few of his prized assets to play for them on 4 November.The All Blacks turned down the RFU’s lucrative proposal of a match against England, instead honouring their agreement to
  
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• Father of Manchester bomber says he didn't expect attack

  24-05-2017 23:37
  The father of the bomber who killed 22 concert-goers in an attack in Manchester told Reuters in the Libyan capital on Wednesday that he had last spoken to his son some five days ago, by phone, and "everything was normal".Ramadan Abedi, who was detained by a Tripoli counter-terrorism force during the interview, said his son Salman had told his family that he was heading on pilgrimage to Mecca.Abedi also said he was sure Salman had not been a member of Islamic State.
  
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• Jack Butland back in England fold for Scotland and France matches

  24-05-2017 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  • Stoke City goalkeeper to be named in Gareth Southgate’s squad
  • Marcus Rashford set for call-up with Wayne Rooney omittedJack Butland is to return to the England fold after a 14-month absence when Gareth Southgate announces his squad on Thursday for the World Cup qualifier away to Scotland and the friendly against France in Paris.The Stoke City goalkeeper earned his fourth and most recent cap in the friendly win against Germany in Berlin in March 2016 but was substituted at hal
  
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• Manchester bomber seen buying rucksack in city on Friday - Sky

  24-05-2017 23:29
  Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was photographed by security cameras in the city's Arndale shopping centre on Friday evening, carrying a rucksack that appeared to be recently purchased, Sky News reported.Three days before he detonated a bomb that killed 22 people at a Manchester concert venue, police believe Abedi withdrew 250 pounds from an ATM before he went shopping in the centre around 1900 GMT in the evening, the broadcaster said.Two poor-quality images from closed circuit television show a
  
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• A Gentle Creature review - brutally realist drama offers up a pilgrimage of suffering

  24-05-2017 23:29 via theguardian.com
  
  A nightmare journey to a Siberian prison provides the backdrop to Sergei Loznitsa’s powerful and severe filmAt an early stage in Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature, one minor character proposes a toast: “To our enormous suffering!” And the whole film is in some sense pledged or consecrated to this Russian pain, unknowable and unassuageable, that makes its devotees drunk with fear and dismay. A Gentle Creature is a brutally realist movie – at least at first –
  
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• Police chiefs says U.S. leaks on Manchester bombing damage trust

  24-05-2017 23:27
  British police chiefs responded to leaks of information relating to Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester that appeared in U.S. media by warning that breaches of trust between international partners undermined their investigation."We greatly value the important relationships we have with our trusted intelligence, law enforcement and security partners around the world," a spokesman for the National Police Chiefs council said, responding to U.S. reports which included images said to be from the s
  
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• Venezuela opposition blasts president's plan to rewrite constitution and delay elections

  24-05-2017 23:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Nicolás Maduro reveals timetable for proposed actions amid months of violent anti-government protest, prompting accusations of autocratic tacticsVenezuelan opposition leaders have reacted with fury to the unveiling of President Nicolás Maduro’s timetable to redraft the country’s constitution and delay regular elections until the end of the year.Following two months of violent anti-government demonstrations that have led to at least 55 deaths, the president provided new
  
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• May to cut short G7 programme after Manchester attack

  24-05-2017 23:15
  
  British Prime Minister Theresa May plans to cut short her visit to the G7 meeting in Sicily after the terror threat level was raised in Britain to critical following a suicide bombing in Manchester, a senior government official said.May was due to stay at the meeting of the world's leading industrialised nations until the end of the programme on Saturday, but now plans to leave after the first day."Based on the fact that we have a threat level which is currently critical and the ongoing situatio
  
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• Cannabis drug cuts seizures in children with severe epilepsy in trial

  24-05-2017 23:00
  
  A new drug derived from cannabis has been shown to reduce the convulsive seizures experienced by children with a severe form of epilepsy by nearly a half – and in a small number, stop them altogether.Doctors involved in the trials say the drug could change the lives of thousands of children for whom there is little treatment, and might also help children and adults with more common forms of epilepsy.Dravet syndrome, which affects one in 40,000 children in the UK, can cause life-threatening
  
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• Eoin Morgan century sets up winning start for England against South Africa

  24-05-2017 22:54 via theguardian.com
  
  • First ODI: England 339-6; South Africa 267. England win by 72 runs
  • South Africa undone by soft dismissals after Morgan and Moeen sparkleIf this is a taste of things to come over the next month we are in for a treat. A sunlit Leeds evening, which rendered the floodlights redundant until 8.30pm, was decorated by a one-day international that had most of the components of a cracker although a late flurry of wickets denied us the luxury of one vital ingredient, a thrilling finish.In the
  
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• Police make sixth arrest after Manchester bomb attack

  24-05-2017 22:44
  British police arrested a sixth person, a woman, in connection with Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester, following searches in the north of the city."These searches are connected to Monday's horrific attack on the Manchester Arena, but this is a fast moving investigation and we are keeping an open mind at this stage," police said in a statement."A woman has been arrested at an address in connection with the investigation."Earlier, the BBC report that armed police had made the arrest during a
  
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• Trump full of praise for Duterte's brutal drugs crackdown, leaked call reveals

  24-05-2017 22:38 via theguardian.com
  
  Leaders also discussed North Korea in confidential call from 29 AprilDemocrats concerned by Trump’s ‘strange fascination with dictators’ Related: Thousands dead: the Philippine president, the death squad allegations and a brutal drugs war Donald Trump praised the Philippines’ president for an “unbelievable job” in a fight against illegal drugs that has left thousands dead and drawn condemnation from American lawmakers, according to a leaked transcript of their
  
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• House intelligence committee will also subpoena Flynn, top Democrat says

  24-05-2017 22:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Committee will join Senate counterpart as part of investigation into possible collusion between Trump campaign and Russia to influence 2016 electionThe US House intelligence committee will join its Senate counterpart in subpoenaing former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election after he declined to appear before the panel, its top Democrat said on Wednesday. “We will be following up with subpoenas, and those su
  
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• Salman Abedi and the Manchester terror cell

  24-05-2017 22:25
  
  A Sky News investigation has linked Salman Abedi with a terror cell in south Manchester.
  
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• The Boston Globe sent the Manchester Evening News pizza in a show of solidarity

  24-05-2017 22:08
  
  The Boston Marathon was attacked in 2013.
  
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• Cannes 2017 day eight: Nicole Kidman and Sofia Coppola on the red carpet – in pictures

  24-05-2017 22:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Day eight at Cannes, and the high profile premieres were The Beguiled, directed by Coppola, and the sculptor biopic Rodin from Jacques DoillonContinue reading...
  
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• US raid killed five Yemen civilians, says rights group disputing official story

  24-05-2017 21:48 via theguardian.com
  
  London-based human rights group cites local sources, who say the raid went wrong from the start when US Navy Seals opened fire on a 70-year-old manFive civilians were killed in a US navy Seal raid in Yemen against al-Qaida militants, a human rights organisation said on Wednesday.US central command said that the raid on Tuesday had killed seven members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) in Marib governorate, “through a combination of small arms fire and precision airstrikes.”
  
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• Jakarta suicide bombers kill three police officers in bus station attack

  24-05-2017 21:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Explosions in Indonesian capital were five minutes apart and also injured at least 10 peopleTwo suspected suicide bombers killed three Indonesian police officers and injured 10 people on Wednesday night in twin blasts near a bus station in the eastern part of the capital, police have said. The blasts went off five minutes apart at Jakarta’s Kampung Melayu terminal, police said. Continue reading...
  
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• Police hunt possible bomb-maker, accomplices after Manchester bombing - sources

  24-05-2017 21:32
  By Michael Holden and Andy BruceMANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - British police hunted on Wednesday for potential accomplices who may have helped Salman Abedi build the bomb that killed 22 people in a crowded concert hall in Manchester and who could be ready to kill again.As police tried to piece together the British-born Abedi's past, Prime Minister Theresa May said security officials had raised their assessment of the threat to Britain to "critical", indicating an attack was imminent.Part of th
  
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• Arrests in Manchester, Tripoli as police hunt suicide bomber's network

  24-05-2017 21:32
  
  By Michael Holden and Andy BruceMANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Police made arrests in Manchester and Tripoli on Wednesday as the investigation into a suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert venue packed with children focused on tracking down a network of accomplices who authorities fear could strike again.Manchester police made four new arrests and searched an address in the city centre.A source said British investigators were hunting for anyone who may have helped build the suicide bo
  
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• Police focus on Libya amid reports of arrest of Salman Abedi's brother

  24-05-2017 21:31 via theguardian.com
  
  Hashem Abedi, 18, who lives in Libya, has reportedly been arrested by a Tripoli militia, which suspects him of Isis linksManchester attack: live
  Police and the security service are focusing upon the Libyan connections of the Manchester suicide bomber as they attempt to locate others involved in the attack that killed 22 concert-goers and injured more than 60 others.
  Salman Abedi travelled to see his mother, father, younger brother and sister in Libya last week but Whitehall sources said they sus
  
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• Police focus on Libya amid reports of arrest of Salman Abedi's brother

  24-05-2017 21:31
  
  Hashem Abedi appears inside the Tripoli-based Special Deterrent anti-terrorism force unit after his detention in Tripoli.Police and the security service are focusing upon the Libyan connections of the Manchester suicide bomber as they attempt to locate others involved in the attack that killed 22 concert-goers and injured more than 60 others.Salman Abedi travelled to see his mother, father, younger brother and sister in Libya last week but Whitehall sources said they suspected there were also wh
  
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• Steve Bell on Trump's meeting with Pope Francis – cartoon

  24-05-2017 21:24 via theguardian.com
  
  Continue reading...
  
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• Pope looks glum after Vatican meeting with Donald Trump

  24-05-2017 21:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Encounter considered more successful than their first but was noteworthy for its sombre tone Pope Francis once said that Christians must have “cheerful faces and eyes full of joy”. But there was little evidence of those emotions as Donald Trump descended on the Vatican on Wednesday for his first face-to-face meeting with the Argentinian pontiff.The encounter was ultimately considered a success following a rocky start to the pair’s relationship last year, when Francis questioned
  
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• Manchester bomb forces sports, music venues into urgent reviews of security

  24-05-2017 21:05
  
  By Adrian Croft and Ian SimpsonPARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Manchester bombing is forcing entertainment venues and security forces worldwide to look urgently for better ways to protect the public - and raising questions about who should pay the fast-rising costs.Islamic State claimed responsibility.Hundreds have died in such atrocities over the last two years: at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, in the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, at nightclubs in Florida and Istanbul, at a Berlin C
  
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• BREAKING: 'Huge bang' as army and police raid flats in Manchester after terror attack

  24-05-2017 20:57 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A LOUD bang has been heard in a block of flats in Blackley, Manchester, as police and the army carry out more raids - sparking fears it could be the location of a terrorist bomb factory.
  
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• Concerns over Trump still allowing his company to profit from foreign officials

  24-05-2017 20:55 via theguardian.com
  
  Documents show the president is continuing to risk violating the constitution’s emoluments clause, which forbids US officials from being paid by a ‘foreign state’Donald Trump will continue to risk violating the US constitution by allowing his company to profit from foreign government officials, according to documents released by Congress on Wednesday.Executives at the president’s hotel business said they were not prepared to make efforts to check whether customers worked
  
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• Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi linked to key UK IS recruiter

  24-05-2017 20:53
  
  Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi had links to an Islamic State cell which operated in the city, and knew one of the terror group's most prolific recruiters, Sky News can reveal.Using documents obtained from inside Islamic State, we have been investigating for a year how this group was radicalised, and who did the radicalising.
  
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• Photographs of Manchester bomb parts published after leak

  24-05-2017 20:50 via theguardian.com
  
  New York Times publishes series of images showing remains of bomb, detonator and what appears to be rucksack • Manchester attack – latest updatesExtraordinary details about the bomb used in the Manchester atrocity have been published in the New York Times, almost all of it forensic evidence gathered by the British police at the scene.A series of photographs of the remains of the bomb, the detonator and what appeared to be a rucksack were leaked. The preliminary investigation by the po
  
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• Folio prize goes to Hisham Matar's memoir The Return

  24-05-2017 20:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Acclaimed account of the author’s journey home to Libya in search of his missing father’s story is the first nonfiction book to win the £20,000 prizeA month after it secured him a Pulitzer prize, Hisham Matar’s memoir The Return has won the Rathbones Folio prize.The Return tells the story of Matar’s journey to his native Libya in search of his missing father, Jaballa, following the fall of Muammar Gadafi’s regime. A businessman and opponent of the dictator, Ja
  
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• Manchester attack: Police say bomber Salman Abedi was part of terror network

  24-05-2017 20:41
  
  Police say they are investigating a terror network linked to the Manchester bomber, as hundreds of soldiers are deployed to UK streets to help guard against the threat of another attack.Greater Manchester Police have arrested a total of five people and raided a series of addresses as part of a fast-moving probe into Monday night's horror.A man was arrested in Wigan on Wednesday afternoon in connection with the Manchester Arena bombing, with officers assessing a package he was carrying.
  
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• What we learned from Vanity Fair's Star Wars: The Last Jedi issue

  24-05-2017 20:38 via theguardian.com
  
  The magazine’s latest issue offers an in-depth look at the highly anticipated sequel. From Leia’s role to the remote planet of Ahch-To, here’s what it revealedThe closer we get to the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi this December, the more JJ Abrams’ achievement on The Force Awakens begins to crystallize. That cliffhanging final scene – with Daisy Ridley’s Rey reaching out to a mute, disbelieving Luke Skywalker on the remote planet of Ahch-To – left
  
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• Didsbury mosque distances itself from Manchester bomber

  24-05-2017 20:37
  
  Mohammad el-Khayat, director of trustees at Didsbury mosque, presides over a minute’s silence outside the mosque for the victims of the attack on Manchester Arena.A mosque attended by Salman Abedi and members of his family has called for anyone with information about the bombing to contact the police and attempted to distance itself from the attacker.In a strongly worded statement, Didsbury mosque and Manchester Islamic Centre called the bombing an act of cowardice and insisted it had work
  
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• Brazil's president struggles to retain power as political crisis deepens

  24-05-2017 20:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Michel Temer is refusing to resign and has said he will fight accusations of involvement in passive corruption, as protests lead to scuffles with policeThousands of protesters have called for Brazil’s president, Michel Temer,to leave office as he lost yet another key adviser amid a deepening political crisis. Related: Brazil: explosive recordings implicate President Michel Temer in briberyContinue reading...
  
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• Manchester United fan fury after sick hooligans shout through silence for terror victims

  24-05-2017 20:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  MANCHESTER United paid special tribute to those who lost their lives in the worst terror attack the north has ever seen.
  
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• Sorry Morrissey, but love and resistance are our best weapons against terror

  24-05-2017 20:21 via theguardian.com
  
  His incendiary comments suggest the Mancunian hero’s journey from icon to embarrassment is complete. Hate is not the answer to masculinity twisted by radicalisationThe day after the day after and it doesn’t get any easier. The blast, the momentary terrible silence and then the screams of the wounded. All of us are now screaming into that silence because we can imagine it only too well. And what we cannot imagine parts of the media will show us, even if we don’t want to see. Sma
  
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• The Guardian view on defending democracy: avoid the politics | Editorial

  24-05-2017 20:17 via theguardian.com
  
  It was right to halt the election campaign. But May must be scrupulous not to let national tragedy play to her advantageWe are heading into a general election that may be one of the most consequential of our lifetimes: one that will mandate the reshaping of the state, allow new treaties to be drawn up with our nearest neighbours, and perhaps even end with national borders redrawn. Yet it is entirely understandable that the election campaign was suspended. The awful cold-blooded murder of innocen
  
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• The Guardian view on Trumpian diplomacy: not up to much | Editorial

  24-05-2017 20:16 via theguardian.com
  
  The US president’s foreign tour has underlined how inadequate his art of the deal is when handling relations between statesJust over halfway through his first foreign trip as US president this week, Donald Trump tweeted a typically modest assessment of his progress: “Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East were great. Trying hard for PEACE. Doing well.”In a Trumpian context, that is perhaps closer to the mark than is usual for his pronouncements. The photo opportunities a
  
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• Manchester terror: arrest made in Wigan

  24-05-2017 20:10
  
  An arrest has been made in Wigan in connection with the Manchester terror attack.
  
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• Enough of Theresa May’s outrage. We need a tough response to terror | Simon Jenkins

  24-05-2017 20:08 via theguardian.com
  
  The prime minister is playing into the hands of terrorists by politicising the Manchester attack. Her job is to allay public anxiety, not promote itWhat public purpose is served by the prime minister declaring she has raised Britain’s “threat level” to “critical”? Before she thought another terrorist attack was “highly likely”. It is now “expected immediately”.What are we supposed to do with this information, other than feel vaguely 
  
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• ‘We are not objects. We are queens’: how Ariana Grande became an unlikely pop hero

  24-05-2017 20:02 via theguardian.com
  
  The star who attracted so many young fans to the Manchester Arena may have started her career in a cheesy kids’ sitcom, but from her spectacular voice to her feminist convictions, she is no industry puppetAriana Grande is an unusual star to be at the centre of a British tragedy in a northern city. If Monday’s attack had taken place two days later, when Take That were due to play the venue, their music would have undoubtedly formed a central part of the coverage. As it
  
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• 'I have an aversion to failure': Sally Rooney, Europe's No 1 debater, on her debut novel

  24-05-2017 19:52 via theguardian.com
  
  She has been called the ‘Salinger for the Snapchat generation’. Sally Rooney explains how she wrote Conversations With Friends in a flat-out creative frenzy
  To listen to Sally Rooney, you would guess she has always been a great talker. As an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin, she became Europe’s No 1 student debater. Now she has written her debut novel – Conversations With Friends – which motors along thanks to its brilliant, funny and startling dialogue, most
  
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• UK political parties to resume national campaigning on Friday

  24-05-2017 19:43
  
  All sides agree that national events, including set-piece speeches by frontbenchers, will wait until Friday.Political parties will resume campaigning for the general election on Friday, after all sides paused the contest as a mark of respect for the victims of the Manchester terror attack.Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, discussed the issue of when to return to the campaign trail with the prime minister on Wednesday, in the latest conversation between the pair since the Manchester Arena bom
  
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• Roots of the hate-filled thinking behind the Manchester bombing | Letters

  24-05-2017 19:43
  
  The news of the horrifying terror attack in Manchester sent me reeling down memory lane.To think that a ghastly suicide attack would take place on British soil targeting young children was preposterous.As a Muslim immigrant to this country, and hailing from a persecuted minority sect in Islam known as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMC), I love and cherish this country no less than any other British citizen.
  
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• 'I still feel raw': nurse tells of treating Manchester bombing victims

  24-05-2017 19:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Joe O’Brien talks of a patient who smiled despite horrific injuries and a doctor, whose daughter was at the arena, returning to treat the wounded • Manchester bombing - latest updatesJoe O’Brien is a senior sister in the surgical department of Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport, where six of the 59 injured in the Manchester bombing were treated.On Monday, I worked from 8am until 6pm as a surgery sister at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport. I was in bed that night listening t
  
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• Father of Manchester bomber arrested in Libyan capital Tripoli - spokesman, witness

  24-05-2017 19:40
  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The father of the attacker who killed 22 people in a suicide bombing in Manchester has been arrested in the Libyan capital Tripoli, according to a counter-terrorism force spokesman and a witness. The counter-terrorism force detained Ramadan Abedi outside his home in the Tripoli suburb of Ayn Zara on Wednesday afternoon. An eyewitness said he was handcuffed by armed men who drove him away in two unmarked vehicles. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Patrick Markey)
  
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• Too much spin caused Mars probe Schiaparelli crash, experts say

  24-05-2017 19:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Investigation concludes ‘unexpected high rotation’ caused probe to plunge to its destruction, hitting Mars surface at estimated 335mphAn electronic dizzy spell caused by spinning too fast led the European Space Agency (Esa) probe Schiaparelli to crash land on Mars, an investigation has concluded. Scientists said three minutes after entering the Martian atmosphere, “unexpected high rotation” resulted in “saturation” of an instrument in the craft tracking spin r
  
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• Under attack, Manchester finds some solace in culture of grit and wit

  24-05-2017 19:29
  
  By Andy BruceMANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Searching for comfort after Britain's deadliest attack in nearly 12 years, residents of Manchester have found some solace in its pioneering culture which one local poet summed up as "Northern grit, Northern wit".While Mancunians joke that their city is best known for grey skies and rain, the horror of a suicide bombing that left 22 people dead and 64 injured has been countered by a resolve not to be cowed by militants.Thousands turned up for a vigil i
  
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