PARIS (AP) – Three women in France were found dead on New Year’s Day, allegedly killed by their partners, despite efforts by President Emmanuel Macron’s government to rein in deadly domestic violence.
In all three cases, the men told police they themselves were at fault, according to local
media reports.
Feminist groups are crying for more action and EUR1 billion in funding to train all French police and ensure better protection for those targetted by abusive partners.
In response to public anger, government ministers held online meetings on Tuesday with local officials in the town where one of the killings occurred. “We’re all mobilised,” tweeted Junior Minister for Equal Rights Elisabeth Moreno.
“Three women killed in 24 hours and their only reaction is to organise a little meeting days later?” asked Marylie Breuil of activist group Nous Toutes. “No, their work isn’t done.”
The three deaths were especially shocking after high-profile efforts by the French government to prevent such killings, and by French activists and media to shine a light
on them.
A 45-year-old woman in the French Riviera city of Nice was found strangled on New Year’s Day in the trunk of her son’s car after her husband turned himself into police, according to the regional prosecutor’s office. The couple had separated last year.
The same day in northeast France, a 56-year-old woman was found stabbed to death in the town of Labry, and her partner acknowledged killing her in an argument, local news site Lorrain Actu quoted the regional prosecutor as saying.
And in western France, a 27-year-old woman was found lying with fatal knife wounds outside her home.
Her partner was arrested and told investigators that he stabbed her and an investigation was opened into premeditated murder, according to regional prosecutors.
NEW YORK (AP) – Hospitals aren’t usually incubators of great music, but in the case of English indie-pop band Glass Animals, one member’s medical emergency led to a breakout album and a Grammy nomination.
Drummer Joe Seaward was struck by a truck in 2018 while riding his bike in Dublin, leaving him fighting for his life.
Dave Bayley, the quartet’s songwriter, singer and producer, spent long hours next to his friend in the hospital, the future uncertain under the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Hospitals are weird places, and I think because of that, they make you feel very nostalgic.
You’re looking for comfort in the past. So that was the kind of beginnings of the album,” Bayley said. “I started writing down these memories and searching for more memories, and some of them were great. Some of them are really uncomfortable.”
The album that emerged was the deeply personal Dreamland, rooted in Bailey’s past. There are playfully references to Scooby-Doo, Fruit Loops, Pepsi Blue and Mr Miyagi, but also a song about domestic abuse (Domestic Bliss) and a tune about an old friend who planned but never pulled off a school shooting (Space Ghost Coast to Coast).
Members of the group Glass Animals, from left, Edmund Irwin-Singer, Joe Seaward, Dave Bayley and Drew MacFarlane appear at the Mercury Prize 2017 Awards in London on September 14, 2017. PHOTO: AP
The standout single is Heat Waves, a hypnotic, hazy tune that honours a departed friend whose birthday brings grief each passing June.
It was a slow-moving hit, reaching the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 after 42 weeks on the chart, the longest climb to the top 10 in United States (US) chart history.
The song has earned over one billion streams on Spotify, landing it in the company of Levitating by Dua Lipa and Dynamite by BTS.
“Dreamland was made before we ever knew about COVID-19, but it was born in period of personal turbulence for Dave and the band – in the wake of Joe’s accident,” said the band’s manager Amy Morgan.
“Heat Waves, for example, is a very personal love song about loss, but it connected because I think it captures a very universal sense of loss – which is at the forefront of all of our hearts at the moment, sadly.”
Glass Animals also snagged a Grammy Award nomination for best new artist, even if that’s a little curious for a band whose debut album came out in 2014.
Later this month, they’ll compete against the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Saweetie, Finneas, Japanese Breakfast, The Kid Laroi and Arlo Parks. The band has also bagged two Brit Award nominations.
Bayley believes some of the success of the album is due to the pandemic. Finding the future bleak, many listeners looked for comfort in the past – like he had done back in the hospital.
“They were in a similar position to the position that I was in when I wrote a lot of this record,” he said. “Everyone was stuck inside. They were listening to the music they grew up with. They were eating the food that they grew up with it. They were seeking comfort in those situations and reliving these memories because they can’t be out creating new ones as well.”
The confessional roots of Dreamland were actually sown on the band’s last album, How to Be a Human Being, which saw Bailey write each song from the perspective of someone else.
The last one, Agnes, was about a friend of the band who died by suicide. It was Bayley’s most personal song and marked a change in his songwriting. He didn’t want to put it on the album. He played it for the rest of the band, who quickly insisted it be on the album.
Fans later wrote letters saying how much the song meant to them and that gave Bayley courage to turn more inward. “That response gave me a lot of confidence to write more personal things,” he said.
“The songs that have meant the most to me by my favourite writers is when they speak about something personal and it makes you feel less alone.”
Firefighters captured a 4.5-metre long crocodile found in a drain near a shop along Jalan Muara, Kampong Salar, Mentiri yesterday.
The firefighters found the crocodile inside a drain near a shop and captured the reptile with a rope and a snake catcher. It was passed to the Wildlife Division. No one was injured.
SO Murni bin Haji Misir led seven firefighters from the Muara Fire station responded following a call about a wild animal disturbance, according to the Fire and Rescue Department (FRD).
The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS) yesterday announced Child Care Centres (CCC) will be able to re-operate in stages during the Endemic Phase of the COVID-19 Recovery Framework from January 17.
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Awang Haji Aminuddin Ihsan bin Pehin Orang Kaya Saiful Mulok Dato Seri Paduka Haji Abidin made the announcement during a press conference yesterday. The minister said the decision was based on the agreement of the COVID-19 Steering Committee as well as the results from an online survey conducted in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Health (MoH) participated by 11,566 parents nationwide.
Brunei Darussalam detected one new Omicron case yesterday with the total number of the variant now standing at nine. All Omicron cases detected in the Sultanate are import cases.
Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Md Isham bin Haji Jaafar shared this during a press conference yesterday.
The minister also said the COVID-19 Steering Committee announced the amendment in the rate of the charges for the SARS-CoV-2 tests in Brunei Darussalam from January 1.
NEW YORK (AFP) – As of Tuesday, many models of the once-indispensable BlackBerry devices will no longer work.
The Canadian company has decided to pull the plug on new updates of its operating system, meaning most BlackBerries that became synonymous with the emerging mobile digital culture of recent decades – and were embraced by politicians and business executives – will not operate correctly after January 4.
“As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 (emergency) functionality,” the company said on its website last month.
TOKYO (AFP) – The buyer of a USD145,000 tuna at Tokyo’s traditional New Year auction said yesterday he hoped the purchase would “brighten” a COVID-hit 2022.
The top price paid for a tuna at the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market fell for the third year running, with demand hit by the pandemic.
The JPY16.88 million shelled out jointly by a restaurant operator and a wholesaler for the huge bluefin tuna yesterday was far below the 2019 record of JPY333.6 million.
The first tuna auction of the year at Toyosu market is a closely watched tradition that draws a horde of fish wholesalers every year.
Bidders sometimes shell out an enormous amount to win the top-priced tuna, which is seen as bringing good luck, as well as plenty of publicity for the buyer.
SINGAPORE (AFP) – Myanmar has “all the ingredients for civil war”, Cambodia, chair of Southeast Asia’s regional bloc, has warned ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Hun Sen to the crisis-wracked country.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup last year, with more than 1,400 people killed in a crackdown on dissent by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.
Hun Sen, whose country this year holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc, will visit Myanmar tomorrow and on Saturday to defuse the crisis.
SYDNEY (AP) – Australia yesterday saw another jump in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations and long queues at testing centres as it continued to battle the rapid spread of the virus in most states.
The country recorded over 64,000 cases, up from 47,000 a day earlier, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison met virtually with the national cabinet – the leaders of Australia’s states and territories – to discuss how to respond to almost daily records in new cases and rising pressure on hospitals.
Morrison faced increasing calls to make rapid antigen tests available free to relieve pressure on PCR testing centres, many of which have been forced to close after reaching capacity. People who have been tested often face long waits for results from overburdened laboratories.
