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Your 2026 Swindale Shield leaders. Petone produced a swashbuckling first half of attacking rugby to exhaust Marist St Pat’s defensive supplies, and went to halftime leading 40-5. The home side were in peak form, the visitors meeting a side playing like it was 1973 all over again. First year Left wing William Davis, out of...

Artist and art world commentator Hilde Lynn Helphenstein was found dead on Sunday in São Paulo’s Rosewood Hotel, according to a report by Brazilian television network Globo . Helphenstein, better known by her pseudonym Jerry Gogosian, was found in her hotel room beside an empty vodka bottle, a broken glass, and unidentified pills. A man who identified himself as her plastic surgeon said he went to her room after she stopped answering her phone, according to Globo . He said further that she had been in Brazil for three weeks while she had a surgical procedure. The death was registered as suspicious by the police, and tests have been requested, says the paper. “Rosewood São Paulo confirms that the guest Hilde Ann Lynn was found dead on the afternoon of Sunday, May 31,” the hotel said in a statement quoted in Globo . “Since the observation of what happened, the hotel has provided full collaboration with the competent authorities, promptly providing all the ...

The British Museum was briefly evacuated Saturday after staff discovered what was described as a “suspicious device” inside a restroom, prompting a police response at one of the world’s most visited museums. The Metropolitan Police were called to the museum’s Bloomsbury headquarters around 2:50 p.m. local time after reports of a suspicious package, according to  The Independent .  Officers investigated the object and later determined it posed no threat. Visitors were allowed back into the museum shortly after 4 p.m. and normal operations resumed. In a statement, the museum said it had also received what it described as “malicious communications” before the evacuation. “The safety and security of our visitors, colleagues and volunteers is always our highest priority,” a museum spokesperson told  The Independent , thanking visitors and staff for their cooperation during the evacuation. The museum decli...

Jordan Soli dives over to score a first half try for Ories against Poneke on Saturday. He is the clear-cut leading points scorer in the Swindale Shield – more below. Photo: Andy McArthur.  Welcome to a new week and new month of rugby. There is a whole lot going on over the next few weeks...

Julio Le Parc, the Argentine-born artist whose shimmering mobiles, vibrating light installations, and participatory environments helped redefine the relationship between art and its audience, died on May 30 in Paris. He was 97. His son, Yamil Le Parc, confirmed the death to the Argentine newspaper  La Nación . The artist had been hospitalized in recent days after a decline in health and died at the American Hospital in Paris. According to his son, Le Parc remained deeply engaged with his work until the end and had been eagerly anticipating a  major retrospective  scheduled to open at Tate Modern in London on June 11. He had hoped to attend the exhibition, which surveys nearly seven decades of his career. For more than six decades, he pursued a simple but radical idea: art should not be something that happens to viewers. It should happen with them. Working with mirrors, light, movement, color, and optical effects, Le Parc became one of ...

A group of House Democrats will ntroduce legislation  aimed at stopping President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, opening a new front in the growing battle over the administration’s efforts to reshape some of the nation’s most visible public monuments. Representatives Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Dina Titus (D-Nev.) announced this week that they will introduce the Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act, which would explicitly prohibit construction of the proposed arch and bar the use of federal funds for the project. The legislation follows a recent vote by Trump appointees on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approving designs for the monument.  The Trump administration has argued that the arch would serve as a commemorative structure tied to celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. Critics, however, contend that the project violates the Commemorative Works Act, which generally req...