New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court

New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court
Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork Monday. (AP)
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New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court

New Banksy mural of a judge beating a protester to be removed from outside London court

LONDON: A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with a gavel will be removed from a wall outside one of London’s most iconic courts, authorities said Monday.
The mural appeared Monday and depicts a protester lying on the ground holding a blood-splattered placard while a judge in a traditional wig and black gown beats him with a gavel. Banksy posted a photo of the work on Instagram, his usual method of claiming a work as authentic. It was captioned “Royal Courts Of Justice. London.”
Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork Monday with sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers, and it was being guarded by two officers and a security camera.
Because the Victorian gothic revival style building is 143 years old, the mural will be removed with consideration for its historical significance, according to HM Courts and Tribunals.
“The Royal Courts of Justice is a listed building and HMCTS are obliged to maintain its original character,” it said in a statement. Listed buildings are considered the country’s most significant historic buildings and sites and are protected by law.
While the artwork doesn’t refer to a particular cause or incident, activists saw it as a reference to the UK government’s ban on the group Palestine Action. On Saturday almost 900 people were arrested at a London protest challenging the ban.
Defend Our Juries, the group that organized the protest, said in a statement that the mural “powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed” by the government ban.
“When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it,” the statement said.
The courts have weighed in on the Palestine Action case, with judges initially rejecting the organization’s request to appeal its ban. A High Court court judge then allowed the appeal to go forward, though the government is now challenging that decision.
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.
Banksy’s work often comments on political issues, with many of his pieces criticizing government policy on migration and war.
At the Glastonbury Festival last year, an inflatable raft holding dummies of migrants in life jackets was unveiled during a band’s headline set. Banksy appeared to claim the stunt, which was thought to symbolize small boat crossings of migrants in the English Channel, in a post on Instagram.
The artist has also taken his message on migration to Europe.
In 2019, “The Migrant Child,” depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life jacket, was unveiled in Venice, Italy. In 2018, a number of works including one near a former center for migrants that depicted a child spray-painting wallpaper over a swastika were discovered in Paris.
Banksy has also created numerous artworks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the years, including one depicting a girl conducting a body search on an Israeli soldier, another showing a dove wearing a flak jacket, and a masked protester hurling a bouquet of flowers. He designed the “Walled Off Hotel” guesthouse in Bethlehem, which closed in October 2023.
Last summer, Banksy captured London’s attention with an animal-themed collection, which concluded with a mural of a gorilla appearing to hold up the entrance gate to London Zoo.
For nine days straight, Banksy-created creatures — from a mountain goat perched on a building buttress to piranhas circling a police guard post to a rhinoceros mounting a car — showed up in unlikely locations around the city.


Pilot and influencer Ethan Guo released from Antarctic air base after two months

Pilot and influencer Ethan Guo released from Antarctic air base after two months
Updated 07 September 2025

Pilot and influencer Ethan Guo released from Antarctic air base after two months

Pilot and influencer Ethan Guo released from Antarctic air base after two months

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile: An American social media influencer who has been stuck in a Chilean air base in Antarctica for two months after landing a plane there without permission was released on Saturday back to the mainland, where he was to pay $30,000 in penalties.
Ethan Guo, who was 19 when he began his fundraising mission for cancer research, was attempting to become the youngest person to fly solo to all seven continents.
But he was detained after Chilean authorities said he lied to officials by providing authorities with “false flight plan data.” Prosecutors said he had been authorized to only fly over Punta Arenas in southern Chile, but that he kept going south, heading for Antarctica in his Cessna 182Q — a single-engine light aircraft known for its versatility.
After he landed in Chile’s Antarctic territory on June 28, he was detained in a military base amid legal negotiations between his lawyers and the government. Guo, who is originally from Tennessee and turned 20 in July, spent two months living in the base with limited communications and freezing Antarctic winter temperatures plunging below zero.
He was released by a Chilean judge on the condition that he donate the tens of thousands of dollars raised to a childhood cancer foundation within 30 days and leave the country as soon as possible. He is also banned from entering Chilean territory for three years.
The influencer’s lawyer Jaime Barrientos told The Associated Press that Guo landed because he had to divert his aircraft due to poor weather conditions, and that he did receive authorization from Chilean authorities.
“To his surprise, when he was about to take off back to Punta Arenas he was arrested, in a process that from my perspective was a total exaggeration,” Barrientos said.
Barrientos said he was happy with the agreement struck with authorities.
Guo landed Saturday at Punta Arenas aboard a navy ship wearing a Chilean national soccer team jersey and appeared friendly with the press after disembarking, describing his detention as “mundane” experience with “limited freedoms”.
“The Chilean people have been incredibly hospitable, they’ve been fantastic people. They’ve taken care of me. They’ve taught me Spanish, and they’ve treated me like family,” he said.


‘Severance’ and ‘The Studio’ could rake in early awards at the Creative Arts Emmys

‘Severance’ and ‘The Studio’ could rake in early awards at the Creative Arts Emmys
Updated 06 September 2025

‘Severance’ and ‘The Studio’ could rake in early awards at the Creative Arts Emmys

‘Severance’ and ‘The Studio’ could rake in early awards at the Creative Arts Emmys
  • The Creative Arts Emmys mostly go to technical and craft nominees
  • Nearly 100 trophies will be handed out at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, a precursor to the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14

LOS ANGELES: “Severance” and “The Studio” could bring in a boatload of early Emmys this weekend.
Over the next two days, nearly 100 trophies will be handed out to many of TV’s finest at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the annual precursor to the main Primetime Emmy Awards, which will air on Sept. 14 on CBS.
“Severance,” the top overall nominee this year with 27, could win as many as 13 for Apple TV+ on Saturday, which will be devoted to scripted shows while Sunday is dedicated to variety and reality TV. “The Studio,” also from Apple, is the top comedy nominee with 23, and could bring in as many as 12 this weekend.
The Creative Arts Emmys mostly go to technical and craft nominees who have little name recognition outside their field. Categories include best sci-fi or period hairstyles and best stunt coordination for a comedy.
But big stars and big moments also emerge. Last year, “Shogun” broke a record for most Emmys for a series in a season with 14 at the Creative Arts ceremony, before it went on to dominate the main ceremony. And the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul sneakily joined the elite EGOT club when they won their first Emmy to go with their Oscar, Tony and Grammy trophies for a song they co-wrote for “Only Murders in the Building.”
The always star-studded guest acting categories will be handed out on Saturday. The guests who played themselves on “The Studio,” the Hollywood satire starring and cocreated by Seth Rogen, make for an A-list set of nominees. Directors Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese are up for their first acting Emmys, and they’ll be competing with fellow “Studio” guests Anthony Mackie and Bryan Cranston for guest actor in a drama.
The best guest actress in a comedy category includes Oscar winners Jamie Lee Curtis and Olivia Colman, both up for their roles on “The Bear.”
And on Sunday, Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé are both nominated for football halftime shows, while Barack Obama’s competition for his second Emmy in the narration category includes Tom Hanks and Idris Elba.
The big names don’t always show up to claim their Emmys at these ceremonies, but many nominees this year are also presenters, including Howard, Curtis, Questlove and Maya Rudolph.
Because of the abundance of more technical awards including prosthetics and visual effects, the Creative Arts Emmys are often a time for genre shows to shine. “The Penguin” and “The Last of Us” could easily collect a set of wins for HBO and streaming partner Max, which led all outlets this year with 142 overall nominations.
So could “Andor” the gritty, revolutionary “Star Wars” series that is a rare Emmy bright spot for Disney+. Snubbed in the acting categories, 11 of its 14 categories will be handed out Saturday. They include best character voice-over for Alan Tudyk, who provided the bluntly honest dialogue of the droid K-2SO.
Tudyk’s category shows the strange range of nominees the Creative Arts ceremony can bring. His voice-over competitors include Julie Andrews for “Bridgerton,” Hank Azaria for “The Simpsons,” and Rudolph for “Big Mouth.”


French museum hit by 9.5m euro porcelain heist

French museum hit by 9.5m euro porcelain heist
Updated 04 September 2025

French museum hit by 9.5m euro porcelain heist

French museum hit by 9.5m euro porcelain heist
  • The robbers triggered the alarm around 3:15 am at the Adrien Dubouche National Museum
  • The museum valued the haul at about $11m in an initial estimate to the police

LIMOGES, France: Thieves snatched three porcelain works worth millions of euros and classed as national treasures in a heist at a French collection in the small hours of Thursday, the museum said.
The robbers triggered the alarm around 3:15 am (0115 GMT) at the Adrien Dubouche National Museum in the central city of Limoges, where they smashed a window to gain entry, a source close to the case, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
The suspects entered the historical gallery where they made off with “two particularly important dishes of Chinese porcelain... dating from the 14th and 15th centuries” and an 18th-century Chinese vase, all designated as “national treasures,” the museum said.
The museum valued the haul at about 9.5 million euros ($11 million) in an initial estimate to the police.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into “aggravated theft of cultural property exhibited in a French museum, committed in a group and with damage to property.”
Security guards sounded the alarm with police quickly arriving on scene but the suspects had already fled, said Limoges public prosecutor Emilie Abrantes.
“The security system worked, but it may need to be reviewed,” the city’s mayor, Emile Roger Lombertie, told reporters.
“All the world’s major museums have had items stolen at one time or another,” Lombertie added before floating a theory behind the theft.
“It is likely that collectors are giving orders to steal these items and are turning to high-level criminals,” he said.
The museum holds around 18,000 works including the largest public collection of Limoges porcelain, according to its website.
There were two major thefts at French museums in November 2024, one at the Cognacq-Jay Museum in Paris, when four people smashed a display with axes and bats in broad daylight while visitors looked on before making away with snuffboxes and other precious artefacts.
The next day, jewelry worth several million euros was taken in an armed robbery at the Hieron Museum in eastern France.


Patrick Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s last surviving child, dies at 97

Patrick Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s last surviving child, dies at 97
Updated 04 September 2025

Patrick Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s last surviving child, dies at 97

Patrick Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s last surviving child, dies at 97

NEW YORK: Patrick Hemingway, the last surviving child of Ernest Hemingway who was inspired by his father to spend years in Africa and later oversaw numerous posthumous works by the Nobel laureate, died Tuesday at age 97.
Hemingway, the second of the author’s three sons, died at his home in Bozeman, Montana, his grandson, Patrick Hemingway Adams, confirmed in a statement.
“My grandfather was the real thing: a larger than life paradox from the old world; a consummate dreamer saddled with a scientific brain. He spoke half a dozen languages and solved complicated mathematical problems for fun, but his heart truly belonged to the written and visual arts,” Adams said.
While brother Gregory Hemingway had a deeply troubled relationship with his famous parent, Patrick Hemingway spoke proudly of his background and welcomed the chance to bring up the family name or get behind a project he thought could sell or attract critical attention. In the 2022 book “Dear Papa: The Letters of Patrick and Ernest Hemingway,” father and son share stories of hunting and fishing and express mutual affection, with the author telling Patrick that “I would rather fish with you and shoot with you than anybody that I have ever known since I was a boy and this is not because we are related.”
As an executor of his father’s estate, Patrick Hemingway approved reissues of such classics as “A Farewell to Arms” and “A Moveable Feast,” featuring revised texts and additional commentary from the author’s son and others. The estate also unsettled Hemingway admirers by expanding beyond books and offering a line of products that included clothing, eyewear, rugs and “Papa’s Pilar Rum.”
Patrick’s most ambitious undertaking was the editing of “True at First Light,” a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway’s time in Africa in the mid-1950s that the author left unfinished at the time of his death. Patrick assembled the 1999 release from some 800 pages of manuscripts, cutting the length by more than half. “True at First Light” was highly anticipated, but ended up disappointing readers and critics, some of whom faulted Patrick for exploiting the family name.
Asked by NPR if he read his father’s work, Patrick replied: “Pretty often, because I have a commercial interest. ... I have to read it in order to be competent in the marketing of it and the management of it.”
Hemingway managed a long life in a family haunted by suicide and mental illness: Ernest Hemingway’s father, Clarence, killed himself in 1928, and the author did the same in 1961. Gregory Hemingway suffered from alcoholism and depression and died in a jail cell in 2001 after being arrested for indecent exposure. Patrick’s half-niece, the actor and model Margaux Hemingway, died from an overdose of phenobarbital in 1996. .
Inheriting his father’s round face and stocky build, Patrick Hemingway was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Ernest Hemingway and the second of his four wives, Pauline Pfeiffer. Because the author rarely stayed in one place for an extended time, the Hemingways lived everywhere from Cuba and Spain to Wyoming and Key West, Florida during Patrick’s childhood . Patrick Hemingway would recall his father’s various “trophy mounts” of animals hunted down on safari and how they were “tastefully distributed throughout every room” of their Key West house, including a wildebeest that hung in the bedroom of Patrick and Gregory.
The displays made East Africa a dream destination for Patrick, a “promised land.” After graduating from Harvard University, he used inheritance money to buy a farm in Tanganyika , where he was a hunter, safari guide, educator and forestry officer in the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
Patrick Hemingway was married twice, to Henrietta Broyles and Carol Thompson, and had a daughter, Mina Hemingway, with his first wife. From the mid-1970s until his death, he was based in Bozeman. Ernest Hemingway spent his final years in the neighboring state of Idaho.
“Sometimes I think of him when I could just barely remember him, you know, when he was just someone who’d kissed you and you didn’t really want to be kissed because the whiskers were a little bit rough on your face,” Patrick told NPR in 2008. “And later on it was, you know, when he came to Africa ... and we’d be riding at night just having fun, you know.
“I remember him in every stage of his life.”


Drones blasting AC/DC and Scarlett Johansson are helping biologists protect cattle from wolves

Drones blasting AC/DC and Scarlett Johansson are helping biologists protect cattle from wolves
Updated 31 August 2025

Drones blasting AC/DC and Scarlett Johansson are helping biologists protect cattle from wolves

Drones blasting AC/DC and Scarlett Johansson are helping biologists protect cattle from wolves
  • Recovering wolf population meant increasing conflict with ranchers, and increasingly creative efforts by the latter to protect livestock

For millennia humans have tried to scare wolves away from their livestock. Most of them didn’t have drones.
But a team of biologists working near the California-Oregon border do, and they’re using them to blast AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” movie clips and live human voices at the apex predators to shoo them away from cattle in an ongoing experiment.
“I am not putting up with this anymore!” actor Scarlett Johansson yells in one clip, from the 2019 film “Marriage Story.”
“With what? I can’t talk to people?” co-star Adam Driver shouts back.
Gray wolves were hunted nearly to extinction throughout the US West by the first half of the 20th century. Since their reintroduction in Idaho and at Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, they’ve proliferated to the point that a population in the Northern Rockies has been removed from the endangered species list.
There are now hundreds of wolves in Washington and Oregon, dozens more in northern California, and thousands roaming near the Great Lakes.
The recovering population has meant increasing conflict with ranchers – and increasingly creative efforts by the latter to protect livestock. They’ve turned to electrified fencing, wolf alarms, guard dogs, horseback patrols, trapping and relocating, and now drones. In some areas where nonlethal efforts have failed, officials routinely approve killing wolves, including last week in Washington state.
Gray wolves killed some 800 domesticated animals across 10 states in 2022, a previous Associated Press review of data from state and federal agencies found.
Scientists with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service developed the techniques for hazing wolves by drone while monitoring them using thermal imaging cameras at night, when the predators are most active. A preliminary study released in 2022 demonstrated that adding human voices through a loudspeaker rigged onto a drone can freak them out.
The team documented successful interruptions of wolf hunts. When Dustin Ranglack, the USDA’s lead researcher on the project, saw one for the first time, he smiled from ear to ear.
“If we could reduce those negative impacts of wolves, that is going to be more likely to lead to a situation where we have coexistence,” Ranglack said.
The preloaded clips include recordings of music, gunshots, fireworks and voices. A drone pilot starts by playing three clips chosen at random, such as the “Marriage Story” scene or “Thunderstruck,” with its screams and hair-raising electric guitar licks.
If those don’t work, the operator can improvise by yelling through a microphone or playing a different clip that’s not among the randomized presets. One favorite is the heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch ‘s cover of “Blue on Black,” which might blast the lyric “You turned and you ran” as the wolves flee.
USDA drone pilots have continued cattle protection patrols this summer while researching wolf responses at ranches with high conflict levels along the Oregon-California border. Patrols extended south to the Sierra Valley in August for the first time, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
It’s unclear whether the wolves might become accustomed to the drones. Herders and wolf hunters in Europe have long deterred them with long lines hung with flapping cloth, but the wolves can eventually learn that the flags are not a threat.
Environmental advocates are optimistic about drones, though, because they allow for scaring wolves in different ways, in different places.
“Wolves are frightened of novel things,” said Amaroq Weiss, a wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “I know that in the human imagination, people think of wolves as big, scary critters that are scared of nothing.”
There are also drawbacks to the technology. A drone with night vision and a loudspeaker costs around $20,000, requires professional training and doesn’t work well in wooded areas, making it impractical for many ranchers.
Ranchers in Northern California who have hosted USDA drone patrols agree that they have reduced livestock deaths so far.
“I’m very appreciative of what they did. But I don’t think it’s a long-term solution,” said Mary Rickert, the owner of a cattle ranch north of Mount Shasta. “What I’m afraid of is that after some period of time, that all of a sudden they go, ‘Wow, this isn’t going to hurt me. It just makes a lot of noise.’”
Ranchers are compensated if they can prove that a wolf killed their livestock. But there are uncompensated costs of having stressed-out cows, such as lower birth rates and tougher meat.
Rickert said if the drones don’t work over the long term, she might have to close the business, which she’s been involved in since at least the 1980s. She wants permission to shoot wolves if they’re attacking her animals or if they come onto her property after a certain number of attacks.
If the technology proves effective and costs come down, someday ranchers might merely have to ask the wolves to go away.
Oregon-based Paul Wolf – yes, Wolf – is the USDA’s southwest district supervisor and the main Five Finger Death Punch fan among the drone pilots. He recalled an early encounter during which a wolf at first merely seemed curious at the sight of a drone, until the pilot talked to it through the speaker.
“He said, ‘Hey wolf – get out of here,’” Wolf said. “The wolf immediately lets go of the cattle and runs away.”