An explosion in the early hours of Wednesday morning has damaged Amsterdam’s court complex.Police were investigating the cause of the blast, which damaged several floors in one of the towers at the complex and happened at 2.30am. No one was injured.“It is an attack on the judicial system,” Netherlands’ security and justice minister, Ivo Opstelten, […]

Actor Chris Hemsworth has been named the sexiest man alive for 2014 by People magazine, telling the publication he thought the decision “pretty funny”. The 31-year-old Australian actor, known for playing an alien who shares the name of a Norse god in the Marvel superhero movies, succeeds last year’s winner singer Adam Levine. Levine, like […]

The heroine of Loitering with Intent, Muriel Spark’s comic novel about the writer’s life in 1949 London, is very proud of her one-room dwelling. It has everything Fleur Talbot needs: “A gas ring for cooking, a bed for sitting and sleeping on, an orange box for food stores and plates, a table for eating and […]

At least 32 people were killed yesterday as cars and houses were swept away ­during flooding and mudslides ­triggered by a violent storm on the Portugese island of Madeira.Emergency services struggled to cope as roads were blocked by fallen trees and bridges collapsed, isolating parts of the popular tourist destination, which lies some 560 miles […]

More than half of European graduates are worried about their careers, a rate that rises to more than 80% in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain according to Europe’s largest graduate survey.The survey, conducted by the trendence institute in Berlin, builds up a picture of an educated European youth firing off scores of applications in vain, […]

The pope’s state visit to Britain starts today, and the Guardian – along with dozens of other news organisations – will have a team of correspondents, bloggers, photographers and columnists following his moves. But the mainstream media cannot be everywhere at once, so we are asking for your help too.This CrowdMap aims to combine verified […]

A new front in Greece’s unfolding economic drama has opened in Athens as the former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, was brought before a special tribunal accused of tampering with a public list of tax evaders and attempted breach of faith.Facing a panel of judges convened for the hearing, the man most associated with Greece’s first […]

Two young brothers killed in a motorway crash on Christmas Day have been named by police as Adnan Habib, 10, and Mohammed Arsalaan Habib, four.They died after the car they were travelling in crashed and overturned on the M6 near Stoke-on-Trent at about 11.25am on Tuesday.A 32-year-old female passenger in the car also died. She […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Forces Afghanistan released the findings from the investigation into the Oct. 3, 2009 complex attack on Combat Outpost Keating in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province, Afghanistan. Soldiers of B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry heroically repelled a complex attack from an enemy force of 300, killing approximately 150 enemy fighters. […]

The feeling of slight dissatisfaction that can come with visiting a modern art gallery is a universal one, best articulated as “I could have done that”.A pair of US teenagers have beaten artists at their own game, pulling off a successful prank at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art earlier this week.While Kevin Nguyen, […]