News Atlas

GuardianOct 16Preview

Power plant attacks reflect Russian blueprint to make Ukrainian cities unlivable

Kremlin turning to punishment of Ukraine’s population in major cities as frontlines remain frozenEurope live – latest updatesAs Russian missiles and drones have systematically slammed into power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv this week, the rolling blackouts and water outages have increasingly resembled a supposed Russian blueprint to destroy life in major Ukrainian cities seen by the Guardian.Even as Donald Trump unilaterally declared an “energy ceasefire” last week between Moscow and Kyiv, Russia continued with its methodical and devastating strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, in particular in Kyiv, in a strategy meant to punish Ukraine’s population and drive the country to capitulation. Continue reading...

Andrew Roth in KyivUkraineRussia

GuardianOct 16Preview

Police search for clues to deadly shooting at Oregon elementary school

Schools closed after one teacher and three children killed, and child and teacher hospitalized with critical injuriesOregon elementary school shooting: what we know so farPolice are investigating a deadly shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, where a 16-year-old opened fire on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher, before being shot dead by an armed bystander.Authorities in Oregon said that the three children killed at Silver Rail elementary school were aged five, eight and 11, and that a seven-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were also hospitalized with critical injuries. Continue reading...

Anna BettsOregonUS school shootings

GuardianOct 16Preview

We are teaching children maths they will never use. Isn’t it better to help them speak fluently? | Simon Jenkins

The education secretary is right to focus on what students need most: the ability to express themselves. As for maths, grab a calculatorAt last the fourth R is born. Articulation – speaking – is to join reading, writing and arithmetic in the education canon. What has become the mighty struggle against the dictatorship of the screen can begin in earnest. The spoken word, human-to-human communication, must finally be recognised by the gods of reactionary schooling. The pundits call it oracy.On Thursday, the education secretary, Lucy Powell, called the academics’ bluff. She wants a radical reform of the national curriculum in England to reduce “desktop” working in favour of verbal fluency and practical skills. This will take courage. For decades, education’s senior leaders have been ramming easily forgotten “subjects”, such as maths and French, into children’s brains so they can be judged a

Simon JenkinsEducationUK news

GuardianOct 16Preview

Dogmatic Nordic liberals v eastern family values: culture-clash drama Fjord touches nerves in Norway and Romania

Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes winner echoes the news story of a Romanian couple whose children were taken by the Norwegian government. As it heads to London film festival, two writers explain how the film exposes real hypocrisiesWhen Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord was shown in Romania as a one-day preview this June, the reception was extraordinary. Across 53 towns and 96 cinemas, the film reportedly pulled in over 40,000 viewers in a single night, a number arthouse cinema rarely sees in Romania. But the response here had little to do with cinema. It felt instead like a reopening of a familiar fault line about the clash of values within the EU itself. Continue reading...

Andrei Popoviciu and Magnus NomeFilmCannes film festival

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