A 1980 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL formerly owned by U2 frontman Bono is set to be auctioned off this week with an estimate of €17.5k. The classic model incorporates a variety of modifications introduced by the singer, who bought the vehicle to celebrate the success of U2’s first album, Boy. It has an interior that has been entirely retrimmed in a cowhide pattern, with the eye-catching material used on all areas including the parcel shelf and door cards. However, one of the standout features is the Alpine sound system, which was fitted by Bono at a cost of €14k– around €80k today. Want to read more? Visit timesmotors.com 

Black Americans have played a crucial role in shaping the nation’s cuisine and yet they have rarely been given credit for their contributions – some of which are considered among the country’s most iconic dishes. As conversations over racial injustice prompt a re-examination of the nation’s cultural record, Black chefs are seizing the moment to demand the exposure they deserve in an industry where many still struggle to break out. The institution of slavery permanently transformed America’s culinary landscape, and its ripples are still felt today. Take America’s staple comfort food, mac and cheese, which was popularised by enslaved chefs.  Other commonly found ingredients, like peanuts, okra and watermelon, were brought over from Africa, says historian Kelley Deetz. Her 2017 book Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine digests some of America’s most enduring culinary traditions. “It was the enslaved cooks who cooked in the plantations of the most important people in America,” Deetz said – singling out founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Deetz said that while slaves would also make European food, African dishes were...

European football’s governing body UEFA hosted its Europa Conference League third qualifying round draws in Nyon on Monday, giving Hibernians, Birkirkara, and Gżira United an idea of whom they might be facing were they to progress into the next round of qualifiers. The draw was split into two, the Champions path and the Main path. In the Champions path, Hibernians have been drawn into a tie against Latvia’s Riga FC or North Macedonia’s Shkendija if they overcome San Marino’s Folgore in the second round scheduled for Tuesday and July 27.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta

An argument between two St Paul’s Bay residents over a parking slot, possibly fueled by a language misunderstanding, cost one of them a finger and landed the other in court.  The incident took place on Sunday afternoon around 3pm at Triq il-Port Ruman, when a verbal spat broke out between Miodrag Simonovic, a 39-year-old Serbian cab driver and a 59-year-old Maltese man. The situation allegedly escalated as one of the men insisted on reserving the free parking space for a tow truck that was expected to call.  The verbal argument, possibly made worse by a language barrier, gave way to blows and ultimately, the Serb allegedly bit off the other man’s finger.  Police were called to intervene.  The Maltese man was subsequently certified as suffering grievous injuries, while the Serb, who had also suffered a battering, was taken into police custody. Upon his arraignment on Monday, the Serb pleaded not guilty to grievously injuring the victim and breaching public peace.  His legal aid lawyer, Daniel Attard, put forward a request for bail, arguing that the accused had been living in Malta for the past 11 years and was “an outstanding citizen” registering no brush with the law.  The man...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hit out an EU court ruling allowing employers in some cases to ban staff from wearing headscarves at work. Erdogan, a devout Muslim leading an Islamic-rooted party, presents himself as an advocate of Muslims worldwide, frequently defending the faith against Islamophobia. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Thursday that a ban on religious symbols such as headscarves "may be justified by the employer's need to present a neutral image towards customers or to prevent social disputes". Erdogan said the ruling impinged on religious freedoms. "The court should change its name. It has no relation to a court of justice. For it to be a court of justice, it should first learn what freedom of religion is," Erdogan said. "There can't be a court of justice that doesn't understand freedom of religion," he added during a press conference in Istanbul. Turkey has a controversial and sensitive history with the headscarf known as hijab. In 2013, when Erdogan was prime minister, Turkey lifted a long-standing ban on wearing the hijab in state institutions. Three years later, the government allowed policewomen to wear the headscarf under their...

Outspoken Italian coach Gennaro Gattuso regretted Monday having been unable to defend himself amid an online campaign by some Tottenham Hotspur fans accusing him of being homophobic and racist. The 2006 World Cup winner had looked set to succeed Jose Mourinho as manager of the Premier League side before the accusations. “I had to accept a story that hurt me more than any defeat or suspension,” Gattuso told Il Messaggero.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta

US businesses in Hong Kong fear mainland Chinese internet curbs, and want local authorities to commit to the free flow of information, the head of the city’s American Chamber of Commerce said on Monday. Hong Kong has long marketed itself as an international business centre, free from China’s controls and the ‘Great Firewall’ used to censor online content. But Beijing has started remoulding the city in its own authoritarian image as it cracks down on dissent following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests two years ago. A sweeping new security law imposed last year has criminalised much dissent and given authorities a suite of new controls, including internet takedown powers. The latest measure to worry business owners is a proposed privacy law that will hold international tech companies and their employees criminally liable for illegal content that users post. Tara Joseph, president of the local American Chamber of Commerce, said the government needed to address the business community’s concerns. “One of the key attributes of Hong Kong is that you can go onto Google, you can go onto Facebook and any other platform you want versus what you can do in mainland China,” she...

Infrastructure Malta has completed works on two controversial roads in Dingli which had been delayed when activists camped on site until an agreement to scale down the original plans was reached.  The project in cTriq id-Daħla tas-Sienja , Triq San Ġwann Bosco and Sqaq il-Museum began last October but works were soon halted after activists occupied the site. Discussions were held with the Planning Authority, the Environment and Resources Authority and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and the decision was taken to scale down the original proposal by reducing the road’s width by a fifth. Following the meetings, the authorities published plans for the new road, and agreed to narrow the planned 10-metre-wide road by two metres. Works began again in March.  Infrastructure Malta chief executive Frederick Azzopardi said in a tweet on Monday that the project had been completed and the area was now safer for residents.  An IM spokesperson explained that the agency had laid the foundations of this new road and built new sidewalks and rubble walls along the sides of the fields next to it. At the same time, it also prepared underground cable pipes so that Enemalta will be able to...

An Israeli firm accused of supplying spyware to governments has been linked to a list of tens of thousands of smartphone numbers, including those of activists, journalists, business executives and politicians around the world, according to reports. The NSO Group and its Pegasus malware - capable of switching on a phone's camera or microphone, and harvesting its data - have been in the headlines since 2016, when researchers accused it of helping spy on a dissident in the United Arab Emirates. Sunday's revelations - part of a collaborative investigation by The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde and other media outlets - raise privacy concerns and reveal the far-reaching extent to which the private firm's software could be misused. The leak consists of more than 50,000 smartphone numbers believed to have been identified as connected to people of interest by NSO clients since 2016, the news organisations said, although it was unclear how many devices were actually targeted or surveilled. NSO has denied any wrongdoing, labelling the allegations "false." On the list were 15,000 numbers in Mexico - among them reportedly a number linked to a murdered reporter - and 300 in India,...

Crowds in sparkly dresses and summer shorts counted down to one minute past midnight, then erupted in celebration as Bar Fibre nightclub opened its doors in showers of confetti. The easing of virus restrictions in England on Monday was a major cause of celebration for nightclubs, which have been unable to operate since March 2020. British tabloids have called Monday England’s Freedom Day, although the surge in virus cases has prompted widespread concern among scientists and officials about the advisability of lifting all restrictions. But for the clubbers filling Fibre in the northern city of Leeds in the early hours, the chance to experience nightlife again was exhilarating. “This is a special moment, this is freedom,” announced a DJ. The club was set to stay open to 6am, with some comparing the atmosphere to New Year’s Eve. “People are treating it like a very special occasion, like a New Year’s Eve type of affair. Freedom Eve is what we’re calling it,” said the owner Terry George, dressed in a black sequinned tuxedo. “We’ve got a packed house.”  George handed out single-use face masks on the dance floor, but there were few takers. “I thought, well, we missed New Year’s, so why...

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association has appealed to direct its COVID-19 policy to the number of infected patients recovering in hospital rather than to the number of those being infected without the need for hospitalisation.   Concurrently, the government also had to pursue its efforts to reduce the number of infected people to get back the “green” status as soon as possible.  In a statement on Monday, referred to the country’s return to the EU’s “red” travel list following a surge in the number of cases. President Tony Zahra said that as national health authorities have confirmed that the majority of the recent new infected cases are unvaccinated individuals, Malta’s task now is to complete the vaccination drive to get every resident in Malta protected. The MHRA also noted that there was a labour shortage in the hospitality industry and called upon the government to exempt tax on overtime and part time revenues earned by employees in the tourism, travel and hospitality sector. “Indeed, we need to do all what is needed to attract and retain employees working in the tourism industry even during such difficult times, as if we get this wrong then the repercussions can be...

The German government on Monday pledged to improve the country's under-fire warning systems as emergency services continued to search for victims of the worst flooding in living memory, with at least 165 people confirmed dead. The west of the country was deluged over two days last week, with torrents of water sweeping away trees, cars and bridges and destroying swathes of housing. Many victims in Germany were found dead in sodden cellars after attempting to retrieve valuables, while others were swept away by the sheer force of the water. A total of 117 people are now confirmed to have died in Rhineland-Palatinate state, with 47 victims in neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and one in Bavaria. At least 31 people also died in Belgium in the floods, and later torrential rain caused havoc in southern Germany and several neighbouring countries. "We haven't been to all the houses yet, we must assume that we will find more bodies," said Rhineland Palatinate's regional interior minister Roger Lewentz.  The number of people missing remains unclear, but Lewentz said authorities have been unable to reach more than a thousand in Rhineland-Palatinate, mainly because of disrupted...

The fast-growing online investment platform Robinhood aims for a valuation of as much as $35 billion (€30bn) when it goes public, the company said on Monday in a securities filing. Robinhood, which has grown quickly during the coronavirus pandemic, anticipates offering shares at between $38 and $42 apiece, making its initial public offering worth as much as $2.3 billion. The service, which is especially popular with younger investors, has described its mission as “to democratise finance for all”.  The company had 18 million funded accounts at the end of March with $81 billion in assets under custody. The company was cofounded in 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, who met as undergraduates at Stanford University. Robinhood’s growing population of individual investors have played a role in the so-called “Reddit Rebellion” in which retail investors coalesced on the Reddit social network in 2021 to support beaten-down stocks such as GameStop and BlackBerry.  The company plans to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “Hood.”

The sixth edition of Malta’s Excellence Gaming Awards took place on Friday, July 16 at the Intercontinental Hotel. These awards have become one of the most prestigious and sought-after events in the gaming industry, showcasing the talent found throughout all facets of the gaming world.  Maltco Lotteries said it feels honoured to have been nominated and win multiple awards for the second consecutive year. The company has been awarded with four highly prestigious awards for ‘Best Industry’s Achiever of the Year Award (Land Based)’, ‘Best Workplace in Malta’, ‘Best CSR Gaming Company’ and the most distinguished award of the MiGEA event – ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ which was won by Maltco’s Chief Financial Officer Lino Micallef Borg.  Maltco Lotteries’ CEO Vasileios Kasiotakis said he was overwhelmed and most appreciative about the recognition of the work performed by all Maltco’s personnel, including all Maltco’s employees and over 200 Maltco agents. He explained that as the leading player within the local land-based gaming industry, Maltco Lotteries’ participation in these awards reinforces the company’s long-standing successful initiative and engagement to the Maltese Gaming...

A sports teacher’s wish to encourage young people to exercise has led her on an 18-hour kayak challenge between Malta and Sicily. Triathlete Karen Amato kayaked 97 kilometres with fellow endurance athletes Daniel Seguna and Ruben Vassallo on Monday last week. The Skolasport teacher said she wanted to raise awareness about the importance of exercise after witnessing students adopting sedentary lifestyles during the pandemic. All three left St Paul’s Bay on Monday at 4.45am and reached Ragusa, Sicily, at 8.30pm. They were accompanied by a support crew that followed them by boat and provided them with the food and water they needed. Amato said the idea to row to Sicily started some time ago when they went on a kayaking trip around Comino but they wanted to attach a cause to their challenge. “Due to the pandemic, I realised that young people were not exercising or working out. Exercise had stopped and we saw a lot of fast food being consumed,” she said. “I wanted to raise awareness about the importance of exercise and the risks of obesity,” she said referring to the fact that schools were closed for several months, with many resorting to online schooling. “We want young people to...

A man charged with money laundering over funds channelled into his bank account as proceeds of a romance fraud was spared an effective jail term but ordered to reimburse the victim. Youssouf Madou Soumaoro Ben, a 35-year-old Ivorian national working in Malta as a dishwasher, had been targeted by investigators as a player in a case where an elderly woman was swindled after falling prey to a fake virtual relationship.  Although he originally pleaded not guilty to money laundering and benefitting from funds obtained through criminal activity, he subsequently registered an admission which was taken into consideration for sentencing purposes. When meting out punishment, the court, presided over by magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, also took note of the accused’s clean criminal record, the nature of the offence and the fact that he was only responsible for the one-half share of the €8,000 involved in the ruse.  In light of such considerations the court condemned the accused to a two-year jail term suspended for four years. Moreover, rather than impose a pecuniary penalty, the court ordered the accused to reimburse €4,000 to the victim within six months, warning that failure to do so...

A 45-year-old man from Victoria was on Monday remanded in custody after pleading not guilty to threatening and slightly injuring another man with a knife. The police said the man was charged in front of magistrate Bridgette Sultana with committing the crime in Triq l-Ewropa, Victoria, on Sunday at around 4.30pm. He was also charged with having the knife in his possession without the required licence. The prosecution was led by Inspector Josef Gauci.

Italian pharmaceutical Leadiant has been fined almost €20 million for allegedly overcharging for medicine used to treat a rare cholesterol disease, the Dutch consumer watchdog said on Monday. The Authority for Consumers and Markets “established that drug manufacturer Leadiant charged far too high a price for its prescription drug CDCA-Leadiant,” it said in a statement. “As such, Leadiant abused its dominant position,” the Hague-based regulator said. In just over a decade, the medicine’s name changed and its price leapt from €46 for a box of 100 capsules in 2008 to €14,000 in 2019, the ACM said. This represented €153,000 per year for a patient, an amount the authority deemed “excessive” and “unfair”. “After a small, low-risk investment, Leadiant implemented a huge price increase for a drug that had already existed for years,” ACM board chairman Martijn Snoep said. “We consider this to be a very serious violation,” he said. The ACM handed Leadiant a €19,569,500 fine. The Italian pharmaceutical said it “fundamentally disagreed” with the fine, telling the Dutch ANP news agency it planned to challenge the decision. “We are convinced that we have always acted correctly and in...

The head of the National Book Council on Monday announced plans to publish a book he says will expose “previously untold facts” about government corruption. In an announcement on social media, Mark Camilleri said he will be publishing a book on Malta's current political and financial crisis in October. Camilleri said he hopes the information he will expose in his upcoming work will lead to arrests and fresh police investigations. The outspoken book council chairman is a Labour Party delegate who has become a vocal critic of the Labour government, lashing out at corruption.   Earlier this year, he gave media interviews accusing former prime minister Joseph Muscat of misleading those who had voted Labour and unwittingly facilitated corruption.   In his social media post on Monday, Camilleri said the country’s political and financial scene is in a “downward spiral”. “While we experience a crisis both in governance and the economy, Labour politicians take comfort in the fact that the Labour Party has a big majority of the electorate and will win the next elections come what may, and nothing else matters,” he wrote.   He added that, as a Labour Party member, he was concerned about...

French police arrested another former far-left extremist from Italy's Red Brigades on Monday, three months after the detention of nine other suspected ex-members of the violent group from the 1970s and 80s. Maurizio di Marzio, a restaurant owner in Paris, had been sought in April when police swooped on former Red Brigades figures who were wanted in Italy for serious crimes including kidnappings. The arrests were approved by President Emmanuel Macron and reversed French policy, which since the 1980s had been to offer the one-time Marxist-Leninists safe haven provided they renounced violence. Di Marzio, who has not served his full prison sentence in Italy over an attempted kidnapping of a senior security official, went on the run in April because an arrest warrant for him was expected to expire in Italy in May. But a court in Rome ruled on July 8 that the warrant was still active, meaning French police began searching for him, sources close to the case told AFP. Macron's approval for the arrests in April was seen as a gesture of goodwill towards Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and a bid to remove a long-standing irritant in Franco-Italian ties. Italian politicians had long...