Foreign

David Lynch, legendary filmmaker, dies at 78

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2 years ago

January 17, 2025

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David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark and dreamlike vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday.

His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday.

“There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole,’” the family’s post read. “It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

The cause of death and location was not immediately available. Last summer, Lynch had revealed to Sight and Sound that he was diagnosed with emphysema and would not be leaving his home because of fears of contracting the coronavirus or “even a cold.”

“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not,” Lynch said, adding he didn’t expect to make another film.

“I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,” Lynch said. “I wouldn’t like that so much.”

Lynch was a onetime painter who broke through in the 1970s with the surreal “Eraserhead” and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences, peers and critics in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir “Mulholland Drive” to the skewed gothic of “Blue Velvet” to the eclectic and eccentric “Twin Peaks,” which won three Golden Globes, two Emmys and even a Grammy for its theme music. Pauline Kael, the film critic, called Lynch “the first populist surrealist — a Frank Capra of dream logic.”

“‘Blue Velvet,’ ‘Mulholland Drive’ and ‘Elephant Man’ defined him as a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade,” director Steven Spielberg said in a statement. Spielberg noted that he had cast Lynch as director John Ford, one of his early influences, in his 2022 film “The Fabelmans.”

“It was surreal and seemed like a scene out of one of David’s own movies,” Spielberg said. “The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice.”

“Lynchian” became a style of its own, yet one that ultimately belonged only to him. Lynch’s films pulled disturbing surrealistic mysteries and unsettling noir nightmares out of ordinary life. In the opening scenes of “Blue Velvet,” among suburban homes and picket fences, an investigator finds a severed ear lying in a manicured lawn.

Steven Soderbergh, who told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was a proud owner of two end tables crafted by Lynch (his numerous hobbies included furniture design), called “Elephant Man” a perfect film.

“He’s one of those filmmakers who was influential but impossible to imitate. People would try but he had one kind of algorithm that worked for him and you attempted to recreate it at your peril,” Soderbergh told the AP. “As non-linear and illogical as they often seemed, they were clearly highly organized in his mind.”

Lynch never won a competitive Academy Award. He received nominations for directing “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and, in 2019, was presented an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.

“To the Academy and everyone who helped me along the way, thanks,” he said at the time, in characteristically off-beat remarks. “You have a very nice face. Good night.”

His other credits included the crime story “Wild at Heart,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the biographical drama “The Elephant Man” and the G-rated, aptly straightforward “The Straight Story.” Actors regularly appearing in his movies included Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts and Richard Farnsworth.

Lynch was a Missoula, Montana, native who moved around often with his family as a child and would long feel most at home away from the classroom, free to explore his fascination with the world. Lynch’s mother was a English teacher and his father a research scientist with the U.S. Agriculture Department. He was raised in the Pacific Northwest before the family settled in Virginia. Lynch’s childhood was by all accounts free of trauma. He praised his parents as “loving” and “fair” in his memoir, though he also recalled formative memories that shaped his sensibility.

One day near his family’s Pacific Northwest home, Lynch recalled seeing a beautiful, naked woman emerge from the woods bloodied and weeping.

“I saw a lot of strange things happen in the woods,” Lynch told Rolling Stone. “And it just seemed to me that people only told you 10% of what they knew and it was up to you to discover the other 90%.”

He had an early gift for visual arts and a passion for travel and discovery. He dropped out of several colleges before enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, beginning of a decade-long apprenticeship as a maker of short movies. He was working as a printmaker in 1966 when he made his first film, a four-minute short named “Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times).” That and other worked landed Lynch a place at the then-nascent American Film Institute.

There he began working on what would become his 1977 feature debut, “Eraserhead.”

“David’s always had a cheerful disposition and sunny personality, but he’s always been attracted to dark things,” a childhood friend is quoted as saying in “Room to Dream,” a 2018 book by Lynch and Kristine McKenna. That’s one of the mysteries of David.”

Aside from furniture making and painting, Lynch was a coffee maker, composer, sculptor and cartoonist. He exuded a Zen peacefulness that he attributed to Transcendental Meditation, which his David Lynch Foundation promoted. In the 2017 short film “What Did Jack Do?” he played a detective interrogating a monkey.

Lynch was himself a singular presence, almost as beguiling and deadpan as his own films. For years, he posted videos of daily weather reports from Southern California. When asked for analysis of his films, Lynch typically demurred.

“I like things that leave some room to dream,” he told the New York Times in 1995. “A lot of mysteries are sewn up at the end, and that kills the dream.”

Foreign

Middle East: Trump vows to hit Iranian infrastructure, if ships in Hormuz are attacked

Published

6 hours ago

July 22, 2026

Austin Ojomah

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President Donald Trump has vowed that the US would destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant any time its forces attack a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

Potential targets would include ones “located next to, or in,” the capital Tehran, he said in a post on Truth Social.

The military response would follow any form of attack on shipping in the vital waterway, “whether it be by missile, rocket, drone, or any other device or weapon”.

His threat follows the US launching strikes on Iran for the 11th consecutive night, with Tehran warning the US against targeting its nuclear facilities.

US Central Command (Centcom) said the wave of strikes were “designed to continue degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping” in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian state media reported that air defences were activated in the capital Tehran. Explosions were also reported in the north-western city of Tabriz, the south-eastern ports of Chabahar and Konarak, and in the southern city of Bushehr, home to Iran’s only nuclear power plant.

Iran, which has retaliated against the US and its Middle East allies, warned of reprisals after Trump said the US would soon hit an underground nuclear site near Natanz.

Iran and the US agreed a ceasefire in April, but hostilities resumed last week as both countries battled over control of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway.

Centcom said US forces had targeted Iranian military operations centres, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure.

It also accused Iran of attacking “more than 30 commercial vessels” passing through the Strait of Hormuz over the past three months.

“The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation,” it said, adding the waterway remained “open for commercial vessel transit”.

Kuwait’s army said on Wednesday that its air defences had engaged with drone attacks from Iran, while Bahrain and Jordan said they had also intercepted drone and missile strikes.

The price of oil jumped in response to the latest escalation, reaching $94 on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington is still willing to engage in diplomacy with Tehran, but added that he did not believe Iran was serious about talks.

Why Iran is risking so much over the Strait of Hormuz
Prior to that, the US president said the next military target could be a complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, an underground nuclear site where Iran is suspected of building an undeclared enrichment facility.

“We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” Trump said on Tuesday, addressing reporters during a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

He added that he would not normally announce targets but “there’s not a thing they can do about it”.

Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya military command said it would consider such an attack “as an expansion of war in the region”, threatening strikes on “all the interests of America, the allies and supporters”, state-run broadcaster IRIB reported.

Trump also threatened to “take care of” the Houthi rebels if the Iran-backed militant group in Yemen followed through on its threatened blockade of Saudi ports.

Foreign

We’re considering arresting Netanyahu if he attends UN meeting — New York mayor

Published

3 days ago

July 20, 2026

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said his administration is examining whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Speaking on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast, Mamdani said the city’s legal department is assessing the matter, which aligns with a campaign pledge he made during the mayoral race.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.”

When asked about the legal authority available to his office, Mamdani said the issue remains under review.

“That’s an active conversation with our legal department. However, what we’ve seen at the national level is a desire sometimes to write your own laws, to go outside of the bounds of legality. That’s not something we have an interest in.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders in 2024 over alleged war crimes committed during and after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden criticised the court’s decision.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC and requires member states to execute the court’s arrest warrants. The Trump administration has also intensified its criticism of the ICC, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently pledging to “dismantle” the court and accusing it of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles” but with “the force of so-called international law.”

Mamdani has consistently criticised the Israeli government and has described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide,” an allegation Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Reacting to the mayor’s remarks, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz dismissed the comments on Saturday, describing them as “pure political theater” while stressing that the United States is not a member of the ICC.

Netanyahu also played down Mamdani’s position during an interview earlier in the week with WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said on social media on Saturday that Netanyahu “will come to New York, address the United Nations General Assembly with pride, and stand before the world to state Israel’s truth and its unwavering right to defend its citizens.”

Foreign

UK warns young travellers against accepting ‘free holidays’ from drug gangs

Published

4 days ago

July 19, 2026

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The UK Home Office has warned young travellers not to jeopardise their futures by accepting offers of free holidays or luxury trips from criminal gangs seeking to recruit drug couriers.

The warning released on July 17, 2026 on its website, issued by Border Force ahead of the peak summer holiday season, comes amid a sharp rise in cannabis smuggling through UK airports, with organised crime groups increasingly targeting school and university leavers, first-time travellers and young holidaymakers through social media.

According to the Home Office, the number of cannabis smugglers intercepted on arrival in the UK by air increased from 142 in 2023 to 976 in 2025.

In the first six months of 2026 alone, 600 air passenger couriers were arrested at UK airports, with men aged between 18 and 37 travelling from Thailand accounting for the largest group.

Border Force said criminal gangs “entice victims with promises of free luxury holidays, business-class flights and spending money” before coercing them into carrying cannabis into the UK.

As part of a nationwide awareness campaign at UK airports, Border Force has “advised travellers to refuse offers of free holidays or accommodation, particularly to destinations where cannabis is legal, including Thailand, Canada and parts of the United States.”

The agency also urged travellers to ensure they know the contents of their luggage, avoid carrying bags belonging to others, ignore approaches made through social media platforms, retain control of their passports and personal documents, and remember that bringing cannabis into the UK remains a serious criminal offence regardless of its legal status abroad.

Border Force Lead Officer for Safeguarding, Kate Goldstone, said: “Organised criminal gangs are exploiting young people for profit – living it up while leaving their courier victims facing lifetime consequences.

“Our message to young travellers is simple. If an offer feels too good to be true, it probably is.

“A single decision made before a holiday could lead to a criminal record, a prison sentence and years of lost opportunities.”

Border Force warned that anyone caught smuggling cannabis could face arrest, prosecution, a criminal record, up to 14 years’ imprisonment and restrictions on future international travel, with lasting consequences for employment and education.

The agency said cannabis seizures at UK airports have reached record levels, rising by 50 per cent over the past year. Seizures from air passengers increased from 2.1 tonnes in 2022 to more than 28 tonnes in 2025.

Although Thailand has emerged as a major source country, Border Force said “criminal networks also operate in other jurisdictions where cannabis is legal or more readily available, including Canada, the United States and parts of Europe.”

The warning coincides with the implementation of a joint UK-Thailand crackdown on cannabis smuggling.

Under the initiative, British nationals caught attempting to “smuggle cannabis from Thailand face average fines of about £17,700 or prison sentences of up to two years.”

Border Force urged anyone approached to transport cannabis or other illegal drugs to report the matter to local authorities, consular services or Crimestoppers.