Latest news with #Afro-Caribbean
The Courier
2 days ago
- The Courier
Perth county lines dealer caught with rucksack packed with crack avoids jail
A pregnant Perth woman who avoided jail for her part in a county lines drug operation was warned to stay out of trouble 'because no one wants you to be giving birth in handcuffs.' Skye McElwee was caught with thousands of pounds worth of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia at her flat in the city's Viewfield Place. The 23-year-old had been involved with a drugs gang from England who were using her home as a base for selling and packaging the class A substance. The members wore distinctive hi-viz jackets and were regularly seen under surveillance taking a dog called Boss for a walk. McElwee was heard asking after the dog when officers raided her home, inadvertently confirming her connection the drug gang. She returned to Perth Sheriff Court for sentencing, having earlier pled guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine from her home on June 1 2023. McElwee wept in the dock as the court heard how she had made great progress to get her life back on track since the offence. Sheriff William Wood told her: 'Although your social work report is in very positive terms, there is no escaping the fact you were an active participant in this plan to supply drugs. 'There were messages on your phones that made clear that you were actively involved. 'This would normally attract a custodial sentence.' But the sheriff told McElwee he would not be sending her to jail. 'It is a positive report and I take into account your age at the time. 'I note there has been no further offending over the last three years and it is hoped that that continues.' McElwee was ordered to stay home between 7pm and 7am each night as part of a five-month restriction of liberty order. The sheriff said: 'You do have to be aware that breaching this order might lead to a custodial sentence and no one wants you to be giving birth in handcuffs. 'I don't think that would happen, but stay out of trouble.' The court heard how Police Scotland received intelligence drugs were being dealt from McElwee's address by a group of males, described as Afro-Caribbean, from England. Prosecutor Stephanie Paterson said: 'This intelligence provided that the males wore high visibility vests and were often seen walking a dog named Boss.' One of the gang was spotted by police walking a brown dog near McElwee's home at around 11am on June 1 2023. The 32-year-old ran off as police approached. He darted past KFC, before running over a bridge into Vasart Court and into St Catherine's Retail Park. Police caught up with him when he returned to Viewfield Place. The suspect was found to be carrying a set of keys attached to a lanyard for children's hospice charity CHAS and a soft toy. Officers later discovered a snapbag containing 5g of crack cocaine behind KFC, which the suspect is believed to have ditched in the chase. An arrest warrant has since been issued for the AWOL suspect, whose last known address was in Slough. When police executed a search warrant on McElwee's flat, they did not need a battering ram to get inside. They used the keys obtained from their suspect to unlock the front door later that afternoon and found McElwee in bed. Ms Paterson said: 'The accused asked officers where the dog was. 'A detective constable explained to her that there was no dog in the house. At this, the accused became upset.' McElwee confirmed to police the name of her dog was Boss. 'It became apparent that the same dog had been with the male who was detained earlier,' said Ms Paterson. A forensic sweep of the property was carried out and a tub filled with white powder was seized from a kitchen worktop. Other paraphernalia including scales, a tick list and snapbags – identical to the one dropped behind KFC – were also found. A plastic box in a rucksack was found to contain 41.9g of crack cocaine, with a street value of more than £4,000. McElwee's iPhone was analysed and it contained incriminating outgoing text messages. When she was interviewed, McElwee was unable to provide an explanation for the drugs found at her home, Ms Paterson said.
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mirror
'Most intelligent' place to live is named - and it's not Oxford or Cambridge
An interactive map shows you how many school children go on to study for a degree at university where you live and the figure can be compared with different areas of the country It's famous as the home of Wembley and as the most ethnically-diverse area in the country but it has also been named as the "smartest" or "most intelligent" place to live. The London borough of Brent is the cleverest place in England based on academic results - with more than five out of six school children going on to study for a degree at university. A total of 7,272 students who went to local authority-maintained schools in the area between the 2015/16 and 2020/21 academic years went on to study a degree. That works out as 84% who completed their 16 to 18 study at a school in Brent. It's the highest ratio of any council area in England, giving Brent a claim to be the country's brightest town. Perhaps surprisingly, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire rank lower than Brent, despite being home to the two oldest, wealthiest and most prestigious universities in the UK. You can see how your area compares by using our interactive map. Brent has been identified as the most ethnically diverse area in the country by place of birth - only 43.9 per cent of people in the area were born in the UK, which is lower than any other local authority. The borough has the highest proportion of Irish residents in the country and also large Indian, Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean communities. Famous former pupils of schools in Brent include George Michael, David Baddiel and Twiggy. The London boroughs of Redbridge and Ealing aren't far behind Brent though, with 83% of pupils having gone on to study a degree over the same time period. Harrow and Kensington and Chelsea are next at 82% each, followed by Barnet at 80% then Merton, Sutton and Southwark at 80% each. Rutland has the highest ratio outside of London (78%) followed by Buckinghamshire (77%), Reading (74%) and Buckinghamshire (74%). Meanwhile, elsewhere in England, Trafford (73%) and Manchester (72%) have the highest ratios in the North. Knowsley has the lowest ratio of students making it to study a degree. Only 40% of pupils to complete their 16 to 18 study at local authority maintained schools in the area went on to study a degree. Swindon fared slightly better at 42%, followed by Hartlepool (44%), Portsmouth (46%) and Barnsley (also 46%).
Business Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Times
Wifredo Lam's surreal creatures haunt STPI
[SINGAPORE] At Singapore's first solo show of Wifredo Lam (1902–1982), the walls are alive with shape-shifting spirits. His hybrid creatures defy classification – they are part animal, part machine, part voodoo hallucination. Lam, a Cuban-Chinese-African artist, spent his life dismantling Western modernism from the inside out. Drawing on Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santeria and Palo Monte, as well as the hallucinatory energy of Surrealism, he created a visual language that was both rebellious and deeply spiritual. His prints are populated by beings with frog fingers, taloned feet and goat heads fused with torpedoes. In one striking work (Apostroph' Apocalypse Plate VIII, 1966), a skeletal winged horse appears locked in a cryptic embrace with a vampiric ox. Are they dancing? Mating? Fighting? Lam offers riddles, not answers. Wifredo Lam's Apostroph' Apocalypse Plate VIII (1966) depicts strange creatures mating or fighting. PHOTO: WILFREDO LAM ESTATE, PARIS Titled Outside In, this year's STPI Annual Special Exhibition may be its most unsettling yet. It challenges viewers to reconsider modernism – not as a clean narrative from Paris or New York, but as a tangled, many-headed force shaped by migration and myth. Echoing the ethos of the National Gallery Singapore's recent exhibitions, which have reframed modernism as a global movement born of cultural exchange, Outside In places Lam not on the periphery, but at the very centre of this complex story. The exhibition's more than 60 works on paper give a rare glimpse into the artist's late-career printmaking practice, developed in close collaboration with renowned Italian master printer Giorgio Upiglio between 1963 and 1982. Many were created alongside avant-garde poets such as Aime Cesaire and Gherasim Luca, reflecting Lam's belief that words – like images – could tap into the unconscious and conjure bizarre, new worlds. Wifredo Lam's Untitled (1980) limited-edition print is on sale for 4,000 euros at STPI. PHOTO: WILFREDO LAM ESTATE, PARIS Outside In opens ahead of Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream, the major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art in November. There, the audiences will encounter the full sweep of Lam's spectral imagination. But here in Singapore, this quieter, more intimate exhibition offers a wonderful entry point into a lesser-known chapter of his practice. Wilfredo Lam: Outside In runs from now till Jul 13 at STPI
Eater
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
Award-Winning Chef Kwame Onwuachi Opens a First-of-Its-Kind Steakhouse in Las Vegas
Chef Kwame Onwuachi — a James Beard Award winner, Top Chef champion, and the force behind New York's acclaimed Tatiana — is heading to Las Vegas. His next project: a first-of-its-kind steakhouse on the Strip that draws from his Afro-Caribbean heritage while shaping the city's next wave of chef-driven dining. The Sahara announced that Onwuachi's newest restaurant, Maroon, will open at the resort in late 2025. Unlike his acclaimed New York restaurant Tatiana — twice named the best in the city by The New York Times and his Dōgon restaurant in Washington, D.C., Maroon is a wholly new concept — a Caribbean steakhouse that embraces Jamaican cooking, including jerk cooking methods, with Las Vegas's unique brand of showstopping steakhouses. Fittingly, Maroon will open in the space currently occupied by chef José Andrés's Bazaar Meat — which is closing and reopening at the Venetian Resort this year. Maroon takes its name from the Maroons of Jamaica — enslaved Africans who escaped bondage and created self-sufficient communities in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. In his book, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, Onwuachi writes, 'There they lived a hardscrabble existence, eking out a life from subsistence farming and occasional raids on the British occupiers.' It was in that rugged terrain, he explains, that Jamaican pepper, Thai bird chili, wild thyme, and a breed of wild hog thrived. 'Jerk was born, and it lives still two hundred years later,' he writes. At Maroon, Onwuachi's menu will feature live-fire cooking, jerk rubs, dry-aged cuts, scotch bonnet-infused sauces, grilled seafood, and sides that draw on West African, Jamaican, and Creole traditions, according to Travel and Leisure. It will echo the Afro-Caribbean influences seen at Tatiana — where curried goat patties and braised oxtails take center stage — and at Dōgon, his D.C. restaurant with dishes like curry-brushed branzino, charbroiled oysters, and grilled wagyu short rib with red stew jam. The restaurant is a first for Las Vegas — a Black-owned Strip restaurant that puts diasporic flavors front and center, telling a story that's as personal as it is universal. Its bold vision and Onwuachi's star power add momentum to a growing wave of out-of-town talent bringing fresh ideas to the Strip — like Simon Kim's Korean steakhouse, Cote, and Jeremy Ford's tasting menu stunner, Stubborn Seed. It's no surprise that Onwuachi is leaning into big ideas with Maroon. He was named as one of Time 's 100 Most Influential People of 2025; he acted as the culinary lead of the 2025 Met Gala, where he curated a menu infused with Caribbean flavors; and he is one of the subjects of Netflix's Chef's Table seventh season. In 2023, the World's 50 Best awarded Tatiana as the One to Watch. In 2019, the San Francisco Chronicle called Onwuachi 'the most important chef in America,' the same year he won the James Beard Award for Emerging Chef. Maroon marks a major moment for the Sahara, a resort on the quieter north end of the Strip. Its last headline-grabbing restaurant debut was Shawn McClain's Balla in 2022. Now, with Onwuachi's arrival — and newcomers like Stubborn Seed at Resorts World, and Mother Wolf and Kyu at the Fontainebleau — the north end is quickly becoming one of the Strip's most exciting culinary frontiers. Sign up for our newsletter.
Eater
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
Inside River North's Ambitious Italian Restaurant With Brazilian Flair
Nic & Junior's is a sleek restaurant in River North, hidden in the shadows of skyscrapers, just east of Wabash, between the Chicago River and Hubbard Street. It's a unique building with large windows and an outdoor patio. Eventually, Nic & Junior's, which debuts today — Friday, May 16 — will start with dinner service before adding lunch. This is no downtown tourist trap, at least that's what Junior Borges and Nic Yanes hope. There are two dining rooms with distinct feels. The room near the entrance has a bar and a single TV, ideal for a cocktail and a quick bite like a burger or salad. The experience diverges while walking into the rear dining room, where there's a chef's counter and a modified tasting menu with dishes like A5 wagyu picanha and an orechetti with braised octopus. But this isn't tweezer food or a place where customers need to wear formal attire. They're attempting to toe the line between neighborhood and fine dining restaurant with handmade pastas with Italian roots complemented by Brazilian flavors. Borges talks about a special version of giardiniera made with biquinho peppers served with mortadella: 'It's the food we want to eat,' Yanes says. 'It really is approachable.' There's a strong connection between Italian and Brazilian cuisine thanks to migration patterns, and that link makes it natural for Borges. The chef made the list of James Beard Award semifinalists in 2023 at Meridian, Eater Dallas's Restaurant of the Year in 2021. Meridian, which closed in mid-2024 after Borges's departure, showcased modern Brazilian cuisine through the chef's Afro-Caribbean lens; he grew up in Rio. Borges has spent 24 years in America and dreamed of owning a restaurant while helping to educate Americans that Brazilian cuisine isn't just about large skewers of meat. He talks about how most Brazilian restaurants in New York and New Jersey focus on more homestyle cuisine. Borges shares nostalgic stories about self-serve restaurants in Rio and mentions the Japanese and Portuguese influences on the country's cuisine. While Borges commutes between Texas and Chicago, his longtime collaborator, Justin Mosley, has moved to the Midwest to lead Nic & Junior's. Mosley has already familiarized himself with Chicago, even tracking down hard-to-find imported ingredients, like fermented yucca juice or a specific tapioca flour used in the Brazilian cheese fritter. They found two cheeses — queijo coalho and catupiry — at Brazil Legal Café, a restaurant in Bucktown. Borges finds Chicago welcoming and has done his best to connect with local chefs. He's cooked at two-Michelin-starred Oriole for a special dinner with 2025 James Beard Award finalist Noah Sandoval. Borges has bonded with John Manion, the chef at Brasero and El Che Steakhouse, and the two have shared stories about spending time in Brazil. Yanes started as a chef before launching Excelsior Hospitality and runs a handful of restaurants, including Austin, Texas restaurant Juniper, which debuted in 2015. He met Borges 12 years ago. Yanes and his family have since moved to Wicker Park, where they've gotten to know Chicago. That's why they have a TV at the bar — they won't deny sports fans a chance to watch an important contest. For the record, Borges is a Dallas Cowboys fan, but his heart is with Flamengo, a Brazilian soccer club. When the Chicago opportunity arrived, Borges was concerned with how the city would receive him as he traveled back and forth between his family in Texas and the Chicago restaurant. But knowing Yanes and Mosley were stationed in town, and the fact that several successful chefs manage restaurants from afar (Thomas Keller famously installed TVs that connect the French Laundry in Yountville, California and Eleven Madison Park In New York so he could hypothetically keep an eye on multiple kitchens), the issue began to fade. Borges says he wants to become part of the community. He's not in Chicago to chase awards or Michelin stars in a larger market. Borges enjoys sharing his food memories, hoping it resonates with diners. For example, he tells a story about a family recipe for papaya jam passed along through generations. Borges is conscious of a vocal tide of folks who may not care about those narratives, and they just want to be fed. Still, he wants to appeal to their intellectual curiosity by ensuring staff are educated and ready to share information if asked. Yanes adds that they're 'not here to drone on about how we are, who we are.' Borges agrees with that sentiment to an extent. He describes a dish he calls the Beach Grilled Cheese. It's a snack he grew up eating, a piece of cheese on a stick drizzled with hot honey. Borges says servers don't need to share the entire story. 'All the staff needs to say is that this is chef Junior's favorite snack on the beach in Brazil,' Borges says. 'Then they can walk away.' Nic & Junior's , 405 N. Wabash, open 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday through Thursday; 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; reservations via Tock . Sign up for our newsletter.
