THE HAGUE: Fifty years after John Lennon and Yoko Ono famously staged a honeymoon “bed-in” for peace in an Amsterdam hotel, a Dutchman has unearthed 30 minutes of color footage of the event from his cellar.
The couple spent a week mostly under the sheets at the Hilton hotel to spread a pacifist message — smoking, eating, singing and playing guitar while receiving journalists for interviews.
The European leg of their honeymoon, which included an unusual press conference in Vienna with the glamor pair obscured inside a giant “bag,” was a huge media event — each step captured by photographers and videographers.
This included a Dutch team shooting footage for a two-part, 84-minute documentary, a kind of video diary filmed at the pair’s request.
It was broadcast only once, shortly after the honeymoon, and shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival the same year before disappearing into the archives of broadcaster KRO, where Jan Hovers was employed in the 1980s.
During a major cleanup of used film reels, he stumbled upon a tin marked: “Mr & Mrs.Lennon’s Honeymoon” among others earmarked for the rubbish heap.
“I asked if I could keep it and they said: ‘No problem, it will all be destroyed anyway’,” Hovers told the Nieuwsuur current affairs program broadcast Sunday.
He said he watched the footage with great pleasure, but then “forgot about it.”
“I never thought it could be unique material. I thought it was a copy. There was no Internet of course, so one could not check.”
As Amsterdam marks the 50th anniversary of the unusual honeymoon, a former colleague remembered that Hovers had once mentioned the find to him.
The colleague “knocked on the door and said: ‘Didn’t you have a film of John and Yoko from the time?’ Only then did I fetch it from the cellar,” Hovers said.
Lennon, co-founder, singer, and songwriter for the Beatles, married Ono in Gibraltar in 1969. He was shot dead in New York in 1980.
Lennon and Beatles biographer Mark Lewinsohn told Nieuwsuur he had no idea the footage existed until now and described it as “very special.”
“It’s a great addition to the archive... It’s another half-an-hour of film of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that will tell us things that will make us more informed and better appreciate what they did.”
The footage, parts of it broadcast by Nieuwsuur, shows the couple in long, white pyjamas in their bed on different days, with two large posters reading “Hair Peace” and “Bed Peace” sellotaped to the hotel window behind them.
In one part, Lennon is sitting in bed playing guitar as Ono looks on, in one they are eating, and in another we see the pair from the back, sitting up the bed as they switch off the light to go to sleep.
After their Amsterdam sojourn, the couple flew to Vienna for a press conference where they spoke to reporters from within a large bag.
Footage of their plane journey to the Austrian capital is on the tape, including some of the press scrums the pair were constantly confronted with.
“We’re serious about the peace bit you know,” Lennon is heard saying toward the end of the program. “If we make people laugh, that’s enough, you know.”
Unknown footage of John Lennon, Yoko Ono resurfaces after 50 years
Unknown footage of John Lennon, Yoko Ono resurfaces after 50 years
- The European leg of their honeymoon was a huge media event — each step captured by photographers and videographers
Liam and Olivia dominate — again — with top baby names in the US for a sixth year in a row
- ‘A trend we’re tracking is that Americans are more likely to choose heritage choices’
WASHINGTON: Liam and Olivia dominate. Still.
The two names have, for a sixth year together, topped the list of names for babies born in the US in 2024.
The Social Security Administration annually tracks the names given to girls and boys in each state, with names dating back to 1880. In time for Mother’s Day, the agency on Friday released the most popular names from applications for Social Security cards.
Liam has reigned for eight years in a row for boys, while Olivia has topped the girls’ list for six. Also, for the sixth consecutive year, Emma took the second slot for girls, and Noah for boys.
The girls’ name Luna slipped out of the Top 10 and was replaced by Sofia, which enters at number 10 for the first time.
After Liam, the most common names for boys are, in order: Noah, Oliver, Theodore, James, Henry, Mateo, Elijah, Lucas and William.
After Olivia, the most common names for girls are Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Mia, Sophia, Isabella, Evelyn, Ava and Sofia.
Sophie Kihm, editor-in-chief of nameberry, a baby naming website, said the latest data showcases how American parents are increasingly choosing names that have cross-cultural appeal. Kihm’s first name shows up in two variations on the annual list.
“A trend we’re tracking is that Americans are more likely to choose heritage choices,” Kihm said, including names that work “no matter where you are in the world.”
”More families in the US come from mixed cultural backgrounds and I hear parents commonly request that they want their child to travel and have a relatively easy to understand name.”
The Social Security Administration’s latest data show that 3.61 million babies were born in the US in 2024. That’s a slight increase from last year’s 3.59 million babies, representing an overall increase in the American birthrate.
Social media stars and popular television shows are having some impact on the rising popularity of certain names, Social Security says.
Among those rising in popularity for girls: Ailany, a Hawaiian name that means “chief,” topped the list. The boys’ name Truce, an Old English name meaning “peace,” rose 11,118 spots from last year’s position to rank 991.
The complete, searchable list of baby names is on the Social Security website.
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Sweden’s new national security adviser quits over dating site images
- Thyberg said that he had failed to disclose the existence of the images
- “I should have informed about this, but I did not,” he said
OSLO: Sweden’s new national security adviser abruptly resigned on Friday, just one day after his appointment, amid criticism from the prime minister that he failed to disclose information regarding images published years ago on a dating website.
Tobias Thyberg, a foreign service veteran who in previous roles served as ambassador to both Ukraine and Afghanistan, had omitted the information during security background checks, the government said.
The resignation comes just months after Thyberg’s predecessor in the high-profile job stepped down and was charged with negligent handling of classified information.
Thyberg did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on Friday.
But in a statement to daily Dagens Nyheter, Thyberg said that he had failed to disclose the existence of the images.
“These are old pictures from an account I previously had on the dating site Grindr. I should have informed about this, but I did not,” he said, according to DN.
Reuters could not independently verify information about the content of the images.
Background checks for sensitive government jobs typically require the disclosure of any information that could potentially make someone vulnerable to blackmail.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the information should have come to light a long time ago.
“It is a systemic failure that this kind of information has not been brought forward,” Kristersson told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Norway.
Thyberg had been due to travel to Oslo on Friday with the prime minister for a meeting of northern European leaders, but the adviser’s participation was canceled.
Two men found guilty of chopping down iconic UK tree
- The tree at Sycamore Gap had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England
- The tree was so striking it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves“
LONDON: An English court found two men guilty on Friday of the “deliberate and mindless” felling of one of the UK’s most iconic trees, an incident that sparked national outrage.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court found former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, guilty of criminal damage for the 2023 felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap.
It had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England. The tree was so striking it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
They were convicted after around five hours of deliberation on two counts of criminal damage: to the sycamore and to the Roman wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it.
Reacting to the verdict, the National Trust conservation body said the “needless felling” of the tree had “shocked people around the country and overseas, demonstrating the powerful connection between people and our natural heritage.
“It was felt particularly deeply here in the north east of England where the tree was an emblem of the region and the backdrop to many personal memories,” said a spokesperson.
Prosecutors had told the court that the two men used a chainsaw to cut down the tree. It was, they said, “an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage,” which they filmed on Graham’s phone and shared with others.
Speaking after the conviction, Northumbria Police’s Kevin Waring said: “We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism, but that term has never been more relevant than today.
“At no point have the two men given an explanation for why they targeted the tree — and there never could be a justifiable one,” he added.
Graham has “been in custody for his own protection after an episode in December,” his lawyer Chris Knox told court on Friday.
The pair drove to the site near Hexham in Graham’s Range Rover and felled the tree on the night of September 27, 2023, slicing through the trunk in “a matter of minutes,” said prosecutor Richard Wright.
“Having completed their moronic mission, the pair got back into the Range Rover and traveled back toward Carlisle” where they lived, he added.
A video of the act recovered from Graham’s phone was shared by the two men with “the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw, and a tree falling,” said Wright.
The next day, in a voice message from Graham to Carruthers, Graham said “it’s gone viral. It is worldwide. It will be on ITV news tonight,” he added.
“They are loving it, they’re revelling in it. This is the reaction of the people that did it. They still think it’s funny, or clever, or big,” said the prosecutor.
Gale Gilchrist, from the Crown Prosecution Service North, said that “in just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its (the tree’s) historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction.
“We hope our community can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted today,” she added.
The pair were jointly charged with causing £622,191 ($832, 821) of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, an ancient Roman fortification stretching from northwest to northeast England.
The two men have been remanded in custody — Carruthers for his own protection. They will be sentenced on July 15.
The sycamore was a symbol of northeast England and a key attraction photographed by millions of visitors over the years, winning the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year in 2016.
Efforts are under way to see if it can be regrown from its stump or seeds.
The National Trust, which owns the wall and the tree, said it has grown 49 saplings from the sycamore’s seeds, which will be planted this winter at sites across the UK.
Rare New Zealand snail is filmed for the first time laying an egg from its neck
- The habits of the threatened Powelliphanta augusta snail were once shrouded in mystery
- The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast
WELLINGTON: The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country’s conservation agency said Wednesday.
What looks like a tiny hen’s egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand.
The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast, where conservation rangers attempting to save the species from extinction have cared for a population of the snails in chilled containers for nearly two decades.
The conditions in the containers mimic the alpine weather in their only former habitat — a remote mountain they were named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining.
Observing their habits
Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has worked with the creatures for 12 years, said the species still holds surprises.
“It’s remarkable that in all the time we’ve spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we’ve seen one lay an egg,” she said in a statement.
Like other snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites, which explains how the creatures can reproduce when encased in a hard shell. The invertebrate uses a genital pore on the right side of its body, just below the head, to simultaneously exchange sperm with another snail, which is stored until each creates an egg.
A long but slow reproductive life
Each snail takes eight years to reach sexual maturity, after which it lays about five eggs a year. The egg can take more than a year to hatch.
“Some of our captive snails are between 25 and 30 years old,” said Flanagan. “They’re polar opposites to the pest garden snail we introduced to New Zealand, which is like a weed, with thousands of offspring each year and a short life.”
The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are only found in New Zealand, mostly in rugged forest and grassland settings where they are threatened by habitat loss.
They are carnivores that slurp up earthworms like noodles, and are some of the world’s largest snails , with oversized, distinctive shells in a range of rich earth colors and swirling patterns.
A political storm
The Powelliphanta augusta was the center of public uproar and legal proceedings in the early 2000s, when an energy company’s plans to mine for coal threatened to destroy the snails’ habitat.
Some 4,000 were removed from the site and relocated, while 2,000 more were housed in chilled storage in the West Coast town of Hokitika to ensure the preservation of the species, which is slow to breed and doesn’t adapt well to new habitats.
In 2011, some 800 of the snails accidentally died in a Department of Conservation refrigerator with faulty temperature control.
But the species’ slow survival continues: In March this year, there were nearly 1,900 snails and nearly 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation agency said.
Poisoned guests rarely invited before deadly mushroom lunch, Australia trial hears
- An Australian woman accused of triple murder with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington had rarely invited her four guests to eat at her home before, a court heard Friday
SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of triple murder with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington had rarely invited her four guests to eat at her home before, a court heard Friday.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in July 2023 by serving them the pastry-and-beef dish with death cap mushrooms.
She is also accused of the attempted murder of her husband’s uncle, who survived the meal after a long stay in hospital.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In a trial that has seized international attention, prosecutors played a recording of a police interview with Patterson’s son, then 14, following the lunch.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said his mother had hosted his paternal grandparents at her house “once before.”
And she had “never” previously hosted Heather and Ian Wilkinson, his father’s aunt and uncle, the boy said.
His mother’s relationship with the couple was “not a negative one, but it is not strong,” the youngster told police.
The accused’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, had declined the invitation to lunch at her home in the sedate Victoria state farm village of Leongatha.
Four members of his family attended: his parents Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle.
While the guests had lunch, Patterson’s children went to a McDonald’s and the cinema.
Within hours after eating, the four guests developed diarrhea and vomiting and were taken to hospital, where doctors diagnosed death cap mushroom poisoning.
Days later, three of the guests were dead. Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor, lived after weeks of hospital treatment.
On the morning after the lunch, Patterson’s son said she was “a little bit quieter” than usual, complaining of “feeling a bit sick and had diarrhea,” the court heard.
The family had missed their local church service because “mum was feeling too sick,” he said.
That night, Patterson and her children ate the purported leftovers of the beef Wellington.
The defendant has said she scraped off the mushrooms because her children were picky eaters.
“It was probably some of the best meat I’ve ever had,” her teenage son said.
“Mum said it was leftovers.”
Jurors also heard a recording of a police interview with Patterson’s daughter, then nine, who said her mum was a good cook.
“We make cupcakes and muffins,” she said.
The girl, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, said she did not get sick from eating the claimed leftovers.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that neither she, nor her children, consumed the deadly mushrooms.
Her defense says it was “a terrible accident” and that Patterson ate the same meal as the others but did not fall as sick.
The trial is expected to last another five weeks.
