Alagna's decision to leave the stage was ridiculed by the director, who said "a tenor ought not to lose his temper like a little boy". In an interview with the newspaper Quotidiano Nazionale, Zeffirelli said he was considering dropping the singer from a forthcoming production. The famously explosive Alagna, who is of Sicilian parentage, had been lined up to sing in Zeffirelli's Traviata at the Rome opera house. … [Read more...] about Tenor who quit will sue La Scala
World news
Daughters of the bomb: my reckoning with Hiroshima, 75 years later
My mixed-race daughter, who has my Japanese and white ancestry, is Black. Her father, my husband, was born in Jamaica, raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where he was slammed on the hoods of police cars by cops when he was a kid playing tag with his friends in the streets. He was harassed so often for “fitting the description of a suspect” that his mom, fed up after the last time she sent him out for milk and police stopped him, filled out a scholarship application for a boarding school in Connecticut. When he was accepted, she sent him away at 14. “I didn’t want anyone to take him away from me at that age,” she told me. “Man, those policemen were a pain in my neck, you hear me?” … [Read more...] about Daughters of the bomb: my reckoning with Hiroshima, 75 years later
England’s contact tracers ‘making handful of calls’ a month
“It’s been very frustrating, and I’m grappling with my own morals because I’m wasting so much [public] money,” they said. “They keep telling us next week it’s going to get more busy, and at first you believe that, but over time reality sets in that I may never make a real call, and I’ll be paid thousands of pounds by the government. That’s deeply frustrating if you want to help.” … [Read more...] about England’s contact tracers ‘making handful of calls’ a month
Four key failings of England’s Covid-19 test-and-trace system
Language barriers Officially, England’s test-and-trace system does have the ability to contact people in Punjabi, Arabic and other languages. But in practice, local public health directors say these people are routinely missed by the national system. This is a key issue, because those who do not speak English well are likely to be older, meaning they are more vulnerable to the worst effects of Covid-19. Some councils have seconded Punjabi- and Arabic-speaking staff from other departments to call people who rely on those languages. Dr Lisa McNally, the director of public health at Sandwell council in the West Midlands, said the government programme was “designed for affluent areas where you’ve got most people speaking English. It’s just not working well in areas where there is a lot of diversity”. … [Read more...] about Four key failings of England’s Covid-19 test-and-trace system
Wednesday briefing: Strife-torn Lebanon reels from Beirut port explosion
The blast, at 6.08pm Tuesday local time, was so powerful it was felt in Cyprus, 120 miles away. It left cars with blown-out windows strewn on highways and a city in shock. Video footage showed whole neighbourhoods in ruins. The port’s granaries were destroyed, prompting fears of a food crisis across a nation already suffering bread shortages and paralysed by the twin crises of coronavirus and an economic meltdown. Lebanon imports about 90% of its wheat – used for making the staple flatbread – and the port granaries held about 85% of the country’s cereals. After the explosion thousands of people sought treatment in nearby hospitals, which were struggling to cope or had been damaged. Ambulances from the north and south of the country and the Bekaa valley to the east were called in to help. … [Read more...] about Wednesday briefing: Strife-torn Lebanon reels from Beirut port explosion
