Latest news with #WarsoftheRoses
Western Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Western Telegraph
Tudor festival to take place in Tenby where Henry VII sheltered
Tenby's National Trust Tudor Merchant's House is well known for giving an historic insight into the 15th century lives of the merchant and his family. And just a few yards away underground is the tunnel through which the young Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII, escaped from Tenby during the Wars of the Roses. After being besieged at Pembroke Castle, he took refuge in the house of Tenby's mayor, Thomas White, near St Mary's Church, before making his way to Tenby harbour through the tunnel, which begins underneath the building which now houses Boots the Chemist in High Street. Pembrokeshire early music group, La Volta, wil be performing during the weekend. (Image: La Volta) Tenby Tudor Weekend 2025 includes talks, a guided walk, a short play, early music and a quiz, as well as an opportunity try some Tudor crafts and cooking. For more information, see call Anne on 01834 842730 or email tenbytownclerk@ . The weekend takes place on Saturday June 21 and 22 and programme highlights include a Tudor painting demonstration by Terry John at the Tudor Merchant's House; a guided walk of Tudor Tenby; a Tudor crafts and cooking workshop for all, a play about Jasper Tudor; a Tudor Spice Trail talk and concerts of early music by La Volta.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Real Reason Trump Has Created This Autopen Scandal
When Richard III seized the English throne towards the end of the Wars of the Roses, he pressured Parliament to legitimize his usurpation of the crown from his nephews. Parliament responded by passing a law that accused the late Edward IV, Richard's brother, and his wife Elizabeth Woodville of all manner of misdeeds. The law, Titulus Regius, was an incendiary one. It claimed that Edward's reign had seen the laws of God and his Church, of nature, and of England left 'broken, subverted and disregarded, contrary to all reason and justice.' It denounced his marriage as invalid, in part because Elizabeth had allegedly bewitched him through 'sorcery and witchcraft.' And it conveniently declared that their children, who stood ahead of Richard in the line of succession (and had gone missing under his care), were bastards and automatically ineligible for the throne. The United States is a republic, not a monarchy. But that has not stopped President Donald Trump from taking a similar approach to declaring his predecessor's administration invalid. This week, he issued a memorandum to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden's White House advisors had used an autopen device to fabricate Biden's signature on official documents. Though the memo did not go so far as to accuse Biden officials of using sorcery to bewitch him, it argued that they took advantage of his allegedly compromised mental state to wield presidential powers. 'This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,' it said. 'The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden's signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.' Trump had already signaled that his focus was on Biden's pardons of various people whom he sees as political enemies. 'The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,' he wrote in a post on his personal social-media website in March. 'In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!' Conservative media outlets have written extensively about the previous administration's use of an autopen in recent months, insinuating that it was a sign of Biden's incapacity. There is no evidence that it was used to sign things against the former president's will. Focusing on it is a throwback of sorts to the Obama years, when he began to use the device while traveling overseas. He first used the autopen to sign an extension of the PATRIOT Act in 2011 during a weeklong tour of Europe. In 2013, he used it to sign the bill that prevented the U.S. government from going over the so-called 'fiscal cliff' while vacationing in Hawaii. Less notable uses also followed, such as signing routine annual proclamations. Obama's autopen use initially raised some constitutional questions since Article I requires the president to 'sign' legislation before it can become law. Conservatives occasionally brought it up as part of their broader efforts to paint Obama's tenure as illegitimate in various ways. But a 2005 opinion by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel found no issue with a president directing his signature to be attached to a document as opposed to signing it by his own hand. It grounded its reasoning in ancient principles of English and early American legal tradition. 'Under the 'principle of signatures,' the common law recognized that one could sign a document not only with one's own hand, but also by the hand of another who was properly authorized to affix one's signature to the document on one's behalf or who did so in one's presence,' the office explained. 'Furthermore, a document signed in one's name by the hand of another in either of these manners was equally effective as a document signed with one's own hand.' It is worth noting that the original autopen controversy stemmed largely around the president's use of it to sign legislation, where the Constitution explicitly requires a signature. For practical reasons, presidents do not commit all or even most of their orders, instructions, or official actions to paper. A president's direct order to someone serving in the military, for example, carries the same legal weight whether delivered over the telephone, via videoconference, or in person. Since Trump's particular issue with the autopen centers around pardons, it's worth noting that the historical precedents for that power are much looser than for any other official act a president might undertake. The modern practice is for would-be recipients to apply to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, who reviews cases and makes recommendations to the president. If approved, the office gives pardon recipients a formal document bearing the president's seal and signature. That is a modern convenience rather than an actual legal requirement, however. Trump himself has ignored or bypassed the pardon attorney and issued almost all of his pardons at his personal whim. Past presidents have also wielded the pardon power by proclamation instead of individualized certificates. They have issued mass pardons to ex-Confederate officials, to formerly polygamous Mormons, Vietnam War draft evaders, and so on without difficulty. My favorite examples of the pardon power's ad hoc usage come from the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln developed a reputation during his time in office as a bit of a soft touch when it came to clemency. He was also strikingly informal about it. In one encounter, Lincoln once wrote out a pardon for a young boy accused of desertion on a nearby scrap of bandage. When General Joseph Hooker once sent a list of death warrants for 55 convicted deserters to the White House during the war, historian Ron Soodalter recounted, Lincoln simply wrote 'pardoned' on the envelope and mailed it back. Lincoln's current successor is familiar with this freewheeling approach to governance, albeit to achieve far different ends. Trump has often gone to great lengths to conceal or destroy government records, whether by tearing them up after he is done with them or absconding with them to his Florida golf resort. He notoriously does not use email or a computer and prefers to conduct business over the phone instead of putting anything into writing. This approach conveniently avoids creating a paper trail that could be used against him later. Trump has also argued before that a president's intent matters more than the precise physical or ministerial act that he performs when running the executive branch. He asserted in a 2022 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, for example, that he could declassify documents telepathically. 'There doesn't have to be a process, as I understand it,' Trump said. 'You're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it.' Naturally, part of Trump's argument is that Biden's intent was dubious because of his 'cognitive decline' while president. 'This was especially true of actions taken during the second half of his Presidency, when his cognitive decline had apparently become even more clear to those working most closely with him,' his memorandum stated. The 'investigation' appears designed to create a pretextual justification to nullify a wide range of official actions undertaken by the Biden administration. The White House's documents take pains to mention Biden's executive orders and judicial appointments as part of this alleged scheme. 'If his advisors secretly used the mechanical signature pen to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name,' the memorandum claimed, 'that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden's name.' If someone forged Biden's signature on an official document that carried legal weight, that would indeed be a scandal and could be a criminal offense. But Trump's theory has a few flaws in it. For one thing, there is no evidence that any Biden officials took any actions without his approval or consent. Biden himself has also denied that it happened. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,' he said in a statement on Friday. 'Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' Trump's idea that a president could invalidate all of his predecessor's acts by claiming that predecessor was mentally incompetent at the time is also untenable, both practically or legally. There is no 'undo' button in the Constitution. A Democratic president could also do the same thing to the Trump administration's executive actions and judicial appointments upon taking office in 2029, perhaps even extending it to his first term. After all, Trump's own mental fitness is far from uncontested: He publicly defended himself from such claims in 2018 by boasting that he was a 'very stable genius.' For those reasons, Trump's own attempt to delegitimize his predecessor's administration would be unlikely to achieve any substantial legal goals. A Supreme Court where one-third of the justices were appointed by Trump is unlikely to agree that a mentally incompetent president's judicial appointees can be removed from the bench by executive fiat. As with Richard III's Titulus Regius, the memorandum's real effect may be as propaganda—grist for the content mills of right-wing media. That this is all arriving ahead of a summer simmering with bad economic headwinds is significant. Even so, it will be hard to distract from the damage wrought by Trump's own administration over the next four years.
The Age
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Searching for your next read? Here are 10 new books
From medieval world-building and early 2000s nostalgia to a seminal study of Palestine and the cultural significance of one of our great rivers, this week's books traverse time, subject and genre. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Pretender Jo Harkin Bloomsbury, $32.99 The Pretender takes us into a late medieval England dominated by violence and political intrigue. As the dynastic bloodbath of the Wars of the Roses draws to a close, Henry Tudor snatches the crown from the corpse of Richard III on Bosworth Field. Meanwhile, a farm-boy is groomed for power – yet another pretender to the throne. Raised John Collan, the lad is told he is not in fact a commoner but Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick. For his own safety, he must assume a third persona – that of Lambert Simnel – as he is shunted between unscrupulous powerbrokers jockeying for position in, and plotting to overthrow, the court of Henry VII. Jo Harkin reaches deeply into medieval (and classical) literature, language and thought in this rich novel that follows the fortunes of a character forced into three layers of identity. It's an unusually granular and imaginative act of historical world-building, attentive to the fabulism and flaw of history itself, and should appeal to fans of medieval fantasy as much as those who devoured Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. A classic love triangle morphs into more multidimensional, non-Euclidian emotional geometry as Erich Puchner's Dream State unfolds. It opens with preparations for matrimony underway. Cece is to be wed to a brilliant young doctor, Charlie. She travels to her in-laws' majestic lake house in Montana to finalise details, together with Charlie's best friend (and best man) Garrett, whose own prospects as a baggage handler at a provincial airport can't compare to the bright future Charlie has mapped out for himself. From there, the course of their lives unfurls over decades. They have children whose lives will be marked in enigmatic, fateful ways by their parents' decisions, and against the family saga, told with winning humour and poignancy, the world around them runs not just to the present day but into a starkly imagined future. Destiny and human agency, a progression from innocence to experience, and the grim fate of the natural environment haunt this expansive and engaging work, which has the scope of a Victorian novel while remaining breezily contemporary in tone and style. Daughter to two Afghan doctors who fled to Germany before she was a thing, Nila is seized by a perverse desire to ruin her life. Sex, drugs and hedonism beckon her to the nightclubs of Berlin. Nila begins a romance with a celebrated American author, Marlowe Woods, that was always bound to exoticise her, even as it nurtures her desire for artistic expression (for which Marlowe, predictably, takes too much credit). She becomes a photographer, as acute at capturing the contradictions and piercing moments of life as it's experienced through images as the novel's author – clearly a poet – is through words. Good Girl might be slightly over-realised, tying up too many loose ends and drumming home answers to thematic questions, but only after it has seduced and shocked with its delirious honesty, its refusal to succumb to received ideas about race and racism, say, or to reduce the countershading and complexity of characters usually portrayed as either good or bad. A coming-of-age novel thrumming with the complications and ironies of desire, from a writer to watch. The Book of Guilt Catherine Chidgey Penguin, $34.99 New Zealand novelist Catherine Chidgey has penned a diverse corpus of fiction – everything from Holocaust novels to a book featuring a magpie narrator – and her ninth novel consciously echoes Kazuo Ishiguro's most renowned work, Never Let Me Go. Like that book, it's set in an institution for children, and follows three of them – teenage triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William – as the institution they live in is mothballed by guilt-ridden bureaucrats. Released into the community, they meet another child cut off from the world outside and discover sinister truths unknown to them. The Book of Guilt departs from Ishiguro in more fully articulating a dystopian vision. The history of this alternate, Thatcher-era England includes the successful assassination of Hitler in 1943, a rapidly negotiated conclusion to the war, and the global embrace of unethical medical experimentation. Chidgey is also more overtly political in her approach, incorporating other voices such as that of a government minister. It isn't a terrible book, but no one who's read the Ishiguro will be able to resist unfortunate comparison. The length of the literary shadow is too long. Deep Cuts Holly Brickley The Borough Press, $32.99 An homage to indie music of the early 2000s wrapped in a romance, Holly Brickley's Deep Cuts sees two young characters enmeshed in a fruitful creative embrace long before love takes over. Joe and Percy meet at Berkeley – the former is an emerging singer/songwriter, the latter is, well, a critic, among other things. Percy recognises Joe's talent and collaborates with him to develop it, although she refuses credit on the album when it is released and Joe's career takes off. When Joe's girlfriend Zoe announces she's gay, the space opens for Percy to make a move. A simmering attraction is placed on the backburner, however, as Joe values their creative bond and friendship too much to risk a relationship. Brickley immerses the reader in period pop-cultural references, as the world turns from 9/11 to the election of President Obama. Her book should find a ready audience in Millennials with a taste for having their nostalgia buttons pressed, even if the romance plot itself is less exciting than the period colour, or Percy discovering her own voice in the face of frustrated love. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Trails to Freedom Simon Tancred Hardie Grant, $39.99 On September 3, 1943 Italy signed an armistice with the Allies, effectively ending its involvement in the war. Prison guards in the north of Italy released their captives, drinking and celebrating with them. Among them were four Australian POWs, who, a few weeks later, walked into neutral Switzerland along medieval paths – the eponymous trails to freedom. It was no stroll in the park, the Germans weren't happy, and they had to be guided by brave partisans. Tancred, who first heard of the Australians' escape from a friend, was inspired to walk the same trails, and as he follows in their footsteps he skilfully incorporates the tales of the partisans, German atrocities and the story of his uncle, a POW who drowned in the Mediterranean after his transport was torpedoed by an English sub, Tancred granting him another fate and imagining he too took that walk to freedom. It's a fascinating account of dangerously topsy-turvy times in one corner of Italy, Tancred vividly evoking the countryside as he completes the walk, topping it with a rolled ciggie in his uncle's honour. The Question of Palestine Edward W. Said Text, $36.99 With the slaughter in Gaza going on and on, the re-publication of this seminal 1979 study couldn't have come at a more critical moment. What distinguished it 45 years ago, among other things, was the fact that for the first time a lauded Palestinian writer, writing in English, presented the Palestinian story to the West to widespread acclaim. It was not so much a history of the country, as an attempt to convey the Palestinian experience to a largely ignorant world. Said, who died in 2003, was a towering figure in critical theory, his landmark work Orientalism essentially putting post-colonial studies on the map. And that whole notion of the oriental Other underpins his thinking here, for it is the Orientalist lens that frames Western and Zionist thinking about Palestinians, ultimately 'de-humanising' them. Not an easy book for him to write, he covers a highly complex situation from 1948 (the establishment of Israel, and the displacement of Palestinians) up to Camp David – also including the reasons for his shift from favouring a two-State solution to a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian one-state solution. The writing, fired by passion yet calmly stated, is masterly. The River Chris Hammer MUP, $36.99 In the summer of 2008-09, when journalist and author Chris Hammer embarked on a series of journeys through the Murray-Darling Basin, a 10-year drought had dried up many of its waterways – and the 'mighty' Murray didn't have the oomph to flow into the sea. As he observes in this up-dated version of his 2010 publication, 'The dams are (now) full, the rivers are flowing', but it's largely due to the luck of the weather and will only take the pendulum to swing back and Australia's largest, most vital river system will once again be in dire straits. And although some things have changed politically, not enough has. The River, a compelling record of those drought days that seemed to bring the apocalypse with them, is just the antidote for the 'complacency' that has since set in. It's a highly evocative catalogue of mud-baked rivers, tragically laughable signs indicating mooring sites and properties going bust (he interviewed numerous farmers), which also incorporates the cultural significance of the river system. A literary warning bell, often very moving and still resonant. Sarah Arachchi's memoir about becoming a paediatrician is as much a migrant tale as a first-hand account of the varied experience of being a female doctor of colour in Australia. Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, her parents (in response to the dangers of civil war) immigrated to Australia, fetching up in Melbourne. It was the start of a protracted tug-of-war between one home and another, often played out in a number of schools both state and private (courtesy of scholarships she won), where she was bullied – the recurring question being 'Where are you really from?' Added to this is the gender prejudice she's continually faced as a woman doctor. But what really comes through is the complexity, the juggling act of coming from two cultures, both of which she embraces – fiercely proud of her Sri Lankan heritage, and an Aussie girl who played cricket against the boys and had, it seems, a particularly fine sweep shot as well as a crush on Shane Warne. A plain speaking but emotionally charged rites-of-passage portrait. Unveiled Vincent Fantauzzo Penguin, $36.99 This memoir, by portrait painter Vincent Fantauzzo, recalls among other things his time growing up in the tough environment of the Broadmeadows/Glenroy area in the late 1970s and '80s. Fights were an everyday occurrence, not to mention the violence and neglect of his father (a troubled relationship reflected in the son's ambivalent feelings on his death). He is also dyslexic and was written off as a lost cause in all the schools he attended. But he could draw and paint, and at 16, painted Albert Einstein, for whom he developed an affinity because Einstein emphasised imagination over knowledge. The story ranges from Broady to Britain and New York (where he had the dubious distinction of meeting Donald Trump), back to Melbourne, marriage and children. There are some pretty grim scenes here – brawls, drugs and the occasional creative use of a baseball bat – but it's also a classic tale of a seemingly lost soul finding his life-saving métier.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Searching for your next read? Here are 10 new books
From medieval world-building and early 2000s nostalgia to a seminal study of Palestine and the cultural significance of one of our great rivers, this week's books traverse time, subject and genre. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Pretender Jo Harkin Bloomsbury, $32.99 The Pretender takes us into a late medieval England dominated by violence and political intrigue. As the dynastic bloodbath of the Wars of the Roses draws to a close, Henry Tudor snatches the crown from the corpse of Richard III on Bosworth Field. Meanwhile, a farm-boy is groomed for power – yet another pretender to the throne. Raised John Collan, the lad is told he is not in fact a commoner but Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick. For his own safety, he must assume a third persona – that of Lambert Simnel – as he is shunted between unscrupulous powerbrokers jockeying for position in, and plotting to overthrow, the court of Henry VII. Jo Harkin reaches deeply into medieval (and classical) literature, language and thought in this rich novel that follows the fortunes of a character forced into three layers of identity. It's an unusually granular and imaginative act of historical world-building, attentive to the fabulism and flaw of history itself, and should appeal to fans of medieval fantasy as much as those who devoured Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. A classic love triangle morphs into more multidimensional, non-Euclidian emotional geometry as Erich Puchner's Dream State unfolds. It opens with preparations for matrimony underway. Cece is to be wed to a brilliant young doctor, Charlie. She travels to her in-laws' majestic lake house in Montana to finalise details, together with Charlie's best friend (and best man) Garrett, whose own prospects as a baggage handler at a provincial airport can't compare to the bright future Charlie has mapped out for himself. From there, the course of their lives unfurls over decades. They have children whose lives will be marked in enigmatic, fateful ways by their parents' decisions, and against the family saga, told with winning humour and poignancy, the world around them runs not just to the present day but into a starkly imagined future. Destiny and human agency, a progression from innocence to experience, and the grim fate of the natural environment haunt this expansive and engaging work, which has the scope of a Victorian novel while remaining breezily contemporary in tone and style. Daughter to two Afghan doctors who fled to Germany before she was a thing, Nila is seized by a perverse desire to ruin her life. Sex, drugs and hedonism beckon her to the nightclubs of Berlin. Nila begins a romance with a celebrated American author, Marlowe Woods, that was always bound to exoticise her, even as it nurtures her desire for artistic expression (for which Marlowe, predictably, takes too much credit). She becomes a photographer, as acute at capturing the contradictions and piercing moments of life as it's experienced through images as the novel's author – clearly a poet – is through words. Good Girl might be slightly over-realised, tying up too many loose ends and drumming home answers to thematic questions, but only after it has seduced and shocked with its delirious honesty, its refusal to succumb to received ideas about race and racism, say, or to reduce the countershading and complexity of characters usually portrayed as either good or bad. A coming-of-age novel thrumming with the complications and ironies of desire, from a writer to watch. The Book of Guilt Catherine Chidgey Penguin, $34.99 New Zealand novelist Catherine Chidgey has penned a diverse corpus of fiction – everything from Holocaust novels to a book featuring a magpie narrator – and her ninth novel consciously echoes Kazuo Ishiguro's most renowned work, Never Let Me Go. Like that book, it's set in an institution for children, and follows three of them – teenage triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William – as the institution they live in is mothballed by guilt-ridden bureaucrats. Released into the community, they meet another child cut off from the world outside and discover sinister truths unknown to them. The Book of Guilt departs from Ishiguro in more fully articulating a dystopian vision. The history of this alternate, Thatcher-era England includes the successful assassination of Hitler in 1943, a rapidly negotiated conclusion to the war, and the global embrace of unethical medical experimentation. Chidgey is also more overtly political in her approach, incorporating other voices such as that of a government minister. It isn't a terrible book, but no one who's read the Ishiguro will be able to resist unfortunate comparison. The length of the literary shadow is too long. Deep Cuts Holly Brickley The Borough Press, $32.99 An homage to indie music of the early 2000s wrapped in a romance, Holly Brickley's Deep Cuts sees two young characters enmeshed in a fruitful creative embrace long before love takes over. Joe and Percy meet at Berkeley – the former is an emerging singer/songwriter, the latter is, well, a critic, among other things. Percy recognises Joe's talent and collaborates with him to develop it, although she refuses credit on the album when it is released and Joe's career takes off. When Joe's girlfriend Zoe announces she's gay, the space opens for Percy to make a move. A simmering attraction is placed on the backburner, however, as Joe values their creative bond and friendship too much to risk a relationship. Brickley immerses the reader in period pop-cultural references, as the world turns from 9/11 to the election of President Obama. Her book should find a ready audience in Millennials with a taste for having their nostalgia buttons pressed, even if the romance plot itself is less exciting than the period colour, or Percy discovering her own voice in the face of frustrated love. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Trails to Freedom Simon Tancred Hardie Grant, $39.99 On September 3, 1943 Italy signed an armistice with the Allies, effectively ending its involvement in the war. Prison guards in the north of Italy released their captives, drinking and celebrating with them. Among them were four Australian POWs, who, a few weeks later, walked into neutral Switzerland along medieval paths – the eponymous trails to freedom. It was no stroll in the park, the Germans weren't happy, and they had to be guided by brave partisans. Tancred, who first heard of the Australians' escape from a friend, was inspired to walk the same trails, and as he follows in their footsteps he skilfully incorporates the tales of the partisans, German atrocities and the story of his uncle, a POW who drowned in the Mediterranean after his transport was torpedoed by an English sub, Tancred granting him another fate and imagining he too took that walk to freedom. It's a fascinating account of dangerously topsy-turvy times in one corner of Italy, Tancred vividly evoking the countryside as he completes the walk, topping it with a rolled ciggie in his uncle's honour. The Question of Palestine Edward W. Said Text, $36.99 With the slaughter in Gaza going on and on, the re-publication of this seminal 1979 study couldn't have come at a more critical moment. What distinguished it 45 years ago, among other things, was the fact that for the first time a lauded Palestinian writer, writing in English, presented the Palestinian story to the West to widespread acclaim. It was not so much a history of the country, as an attempt to convey the Palestinian experience to a largely ignorant world. Said, who died in 2003, was a towering figure in critical theory, his landmark work Orientalism essentially putting post-colonial studies on the map. And that whole notion of the oriental Other underpins his thinking here, for it is the Orientalist lens that frames Western and Zionist thinking about Palestinians, ultimately 'de-humanising' them. Not an easy book for him to write, he covers a highly complex situation from 1948 (the establishment of Israel, and the displacement of Palestinians) up to Camp David – also including the reasons for his shift from favouring a two-State solution to a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian one-state solution. The writing, fired by passion yet calmly stated, is masterly. The River Chris Hammer MUP, $36.99 In the summer of 2008-09, when journalist and author Chris Hammer embarked on a series of journeys through the Murray-Darling Basin, a 10-year drought had dried up many of its waterways – and the 'mighty' Murray didn't have the oomph to flow into the sea. As he observes in this up-dated version of his 2010 publication, 'The dams are (now) full, the rivers are flowing', but it's largely due to the luck of the weather and will only take the pendulum to swing back and Australia's largest, most vital river system will once again be in dire straits. And although some things have changed politically, not enough has. The River, a compelling record of those drought days that seemed to bring the apocalypse with them, is just the antidote for the 'complacency' that has since set in. It's a highly evocative catalogue of mud-baked rivers, tragically laughable signs indicating mooring sites and properties going bust (he interviewed numerous farmers), which also incorporates the cultural significance of the river system. A literary warning bell, often very moving and still resonant. Sarah Arachchi's memoir about becoming a paediatrician is as much a migrant tale as a first-hand account of the varied experience of being a female doctor of colour in Australia. Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, her parents (in response to the dangers of civil war) immigrated to Australia, fetching up in Melbourne. It was the start of a protracted tug-of-war between one home and another, often played out in a number of schools both state and private (courtesy of scholarships she won), where she was bullied – the recurring question being 'Where are you really from?' Added to this is the gender prejudice she's continually faced as a woman doctor. But what really comes through is the complexity, the juggling act of coming from two cultures, both of which she embraces – fiercely proud of her Sri Lankan heritage, and an Aussie girl who played cricket against the boys and had, it seems, a particularly fine sweep shot as well as a crush on Shane Warne. A plain speaking but emotionally charged rites-of-passage portrait. Unveiled Vincent Fantauzzo Penguin, $36.99 This memoir, by portrait painter Vincent Fantauzzo, recalls among other things his time growing up in the tough environment of the Broadmeadows/Glenroy area in the late 1970s and '80s. Fights were an everyday occurrence, not to mention the violence and neglect of his father (a troubled relationship reflected in the son's ambivalent feelings on his death). He is also dyslexic and was written off as a lost cause in all the schools he attended. But he could draw and paint, and at 16, painted Albert Einstein, for whom he developed an affinity because Einstein emphasised imagination over knowledge. The story ranges from Broady to Britain and New York (where he had the dubious distinction of meeting Donald Trump), back to Melbourne, marriage and children. There are some pretty grim scenes here – brawls, drugs and the occasional creative use of a baseball bat – but it's also a classic tale of a seemingly lost soul finding his life-saving métier.
Scottish Sun
16-05-2025
- Scottish Sun
Dramatic moment cops smash ruthless county lines gang forcing kids to smuggle fatal amounts of drugs in their bodies
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) TREMBLING in the back of a police car, a terrified 15-year-old boy begs for help from the officer driving. He has just revealed that ruthless drug dealers had forced him to hide 121 wraps of crack cocaine and heroin by inserting them into his body. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Lancashire Police launched a dawn raid to smash a gang of county line drug dealers Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd 5 Cops arrested one of the suspects from a semi-detached property on a well-manicured road in Blackburn Credit: West Yorkshire Police 5 At 6.30am the four-man team from East Lancs banged on the door with cries of 'Police, open the door' Credit: West Yorkshire Police If the packaging on the bags had burst he would have died. He was picked up after being in an uninsured car alongside an older teen, who had already been dropped off, and was being taken back to the care home where he lived. Before being stopped by police in Bradford, he was en route to East Lancashire, where the drugs would have been sold. The teenager was being forced to work for the Max county line drug- trafficking network, which runs between Yorkshire and Lancashire — the counties that fought the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century. Fortunately, after a painstaking police operation, within weeks of his plea for help, the county lines operation that had ensnared him had been dealt a potentially fatal blow. Lancashire Police, with the help of West Yorkshire Police, stormed into five properties simultaneously to arrest key players of an organised crime gang, suspected of running the line. More than 50 cops across Bradford and Blackburn arrested five men, who were all charged yesterday with supplying a controlled drug. The Sun was with Lancashire Police as they arrested one of the suspects from a semi-detached property on a well-manicured road in Blackburn on Thursday. At 6.30am the four-man team from East Lancs banged on the door with cries of 'Police, open the door'. Curtains immediately twitched, but it was five minutes until the door opened. Oliver Harvey investigates the use of a drug smuggling submarine's journey from South America to Spain Within seconds, the officers were inside, and shortly afterwards marched out their suspect in handcuffs as his parents looked on. The home was searched, and the team found several phones inside. The man arrested was believed to be one of the gang's logistic experts who ensure smooth movement of kids and drugs. Detective Sergeant Stu Peall, who led the operation, told The Sun: 'The chap arrested in Blackburn is believed to be involved in the logistics of moving the people and drugs from Bradford into Lancashire. 'He made sure the car is insured, that it has someone with a valid driving licence driving, because the last thing the line wants is to lose product to the police because they've not sorted the transport properly. 'For county lines, transport is key.' 5 Police forces work together to share intelligence to shut down the county lines gangs The force's East Exploitation Team used phone data to track the source of the drugs and identify all five men who were arrested on Thursday morning. They are accused of dealing crack cocaine and heroin in and around down-at-heel Blackburn and Burnley — which has a needle exchange so users can have safer injections. Drugs and teenagers were moved separately between counties, with the car journey taking about an hour, and the train just 44 minutes. This is the latest phase of Operation Warrior, which has seen Lancashire Police seize 616kg of cocaine, heroin and cannabis, alongside £4.3million of assets from crooks. DS Peall's team alone have secured 1,000 years of imprisonment over the last seven years. The people in charge of the Max line tried to avoid detection by keeping the drugs line phone in Bradford, across the border in West Yorks, but only dealing in East Lancashire. DS Peall explained: 'If you base a line [the phone] in one county, and deal in a different county, the intelligence flow becomes more difficult. 'It means the force that holds the drugs line won't know about it because the dealing doesn't take place there. Their informers will only know about stuff that is happening in that county, so it takes time to put all the pieces together. 'West Yorkshire Police have been fantastic working with us to get this line taken out, despite the best attempts of the criminals to hide it.' A county line running from Bradford isn't an uncommon find for the police, although they also get them from Greater Manchester and Merseyside as well. Bradford has become a hotbed for running county lines across the country, as far away as Exeter in Devon, and Edinburgh, as our graphic shows. Ds Peall said: 'The grim reality of county lines is that they exploit children and young people for their own gain. 'It's beyond horrible that the teenagers, and in this instance children, are told to insert drugs packages into themselves. 'The young lad who lived in a care home in Leeds was forced to put drugs in himself, and that is the cruel reality of what it means to take drugs across county lines. 'We also found a teenager from Bradford at an address in Bacup, in East Lancashire, with a woman he had no connection to. 'They claimed to be relatives, but it didn't add up, and we found that he was a vulnerable teenager from Bradford. He was then stopped in possession of Class A drugs a few weeks later.' 5 DS Stu Peall, who led the arrests, and his team have secured 1,000 years of imprisonment over the last seven years Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd Many of the teenagers exploited by gangs are told to hide their drugs inside themselves to avoid detection when travelling, risking death if the packages burst. Bolton GP Dr Helen Wall said: 'It is incredibly dangerous and can be quickly fatal. 'If a packet leaks or ruptures, rapid absorption of cocaine or heroin through the rectal lining can occur. This can lead to drug overdose, which is life-threatening. 'Secondary to this, the sharp edges of some wrapping materials like plastic or foil can cause tears or abrasions. Anything inserted like this can introduce bacteria, leading to local infections, or in the worst cases, sepsis.' The teenagers face other dangers too, such as conflict with local rivals. DS Peall said: 'Often young boys aged 15 to 18 are running the drugs and being put into other gangs' patches. 'There will be friction with the local drug dealers in East Lancashire at these teenagers moving into their territory and disrupting their lines within the county. 'It causes a lot of violence between different groups, and these kids are being exploited and put in danger in all sorts of ways.' Lancashire Police focus on safeguarding the children who have been coerced into county lines and work on helping them to rebuild a life away from criminality. DS Peall said: 'The last thing we want is to put a vulnerable kid through the court system.' He has a message for anyone who is caught up in the illegal trade. He said: 'If you are being forced into running drugs, speak to your family. Open up about it and then come to the police. 'We can help. We can support you. You're being exploited, even if you don't think that is the case.' Rachel Seabrook, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at The Children's Society charity, said: 'Children from all backgrounds, some barely out of primary school, are being groomed and forced into the dangerous world of county lines by ruthless criminals. 'Once trapped, they face horrifying threats of violence, humiliation, or even criminal charges against themselves or their families. 'The trauma from this brutal exploitation can devastate young lives, causing lasting damage to their mental health, ruining friendships and destroying relationships. 'These children are not criminals, they're victims who have been robbed of their childhood and freedom.' But the police are determined to tackle the gangs behind the childhood exploitation. Having disrupted multiple county lines, DS Peall issued a warning to drugs gangs plotting to get a foothold in East Lancashire. He said: 'It won't work. As long as there are teams like mine, you won't get away with it.'
