Latest news with #Curtis
Sunday World
7 hours ago
- Sunday World
Teen repeatedly punched girlfriend in the face at Dublin hotel
Cameron Curtis admitted assaulting Alannah Corrigan at The Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire A Dublin teenager who falsely imprisoned his partner and subjected her to a series of nine assaults over two months last summer is to be sentenced later at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Cameron Curtis (19) of Finglas Road, Finglas, pleaded guilty to assaulting Alannah Corrigan (20) causing her harm on July 19, 2022 while the two were staying overnight at The Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. He further admitted seven counts of assault causing harm and one count of false imprisonment of Ms Corrigan on August 12, 13, 14 and 16 August at various locations in Binary Hub, Bonham Street in Dublin 8. At a hearing last week, the court heard that Curtis kicked, punched and slapped Ms Corrigan repeatedly during the assaults, also grabbing her by the hair, spitting in her face, squeezing her neck in a chokehold and threatening to kill her and smash a glass bottle over her head. Detective Garda Mark Costello agreed with Barry White SC, defending, that Ms Corrigan was a 'hostile witness' and that she and Curtis remain in a relationship. The court heard that Curtis accused Ms Corrigan of cheating on him and became violent when she would not disclose her Snapchat password to him. Gda Costello told Simon Matthews BL, prosecuting, that Ms Corrigan had booked them a room in the Royal Marine Hotel for one night when Curtis accused her of cheating, threatening to smash a glass Kopparberg cider bottle over her head if she didn't tell him who she was cheating with. Cameron Curtis Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 2nd Ms Corrigan later told gardaí that Curtis hit her face 10 or 11 times with his fist and that she was screaming throughout the assault. Staff members came to the scene and described Curtis as 'aggressive and rude', the court heard. Gardaí were alerted and took a report but Ms Corrigan did not wish to proceed with the complaint. She went to hospital and was treated with anti-inflammatories and paracetamol, the court heard. Some weeks later, the couple were staying in Ms Corrigan's sister's room at student accommodation at Binary Hub on Bonham Street when Curtis again assaulted the victim. Ms Corrigan later told gardaí that Curtis slapped her in the face when she wouldn't disclose her Snapchat password, before calming down and having what she described as 'periods of normality' before he became violent again. The couple slept for a while before Ms Corrigan woke to him grabbing her by the neck, demanding her password and dragging her by the hair to the ground. He kicked her on both arms and legs, punched her head and jaw several times, slapped her and spat in her face before calming down again, the court heard. Ms Corrigan said he later accused her of cheating again and punched her in the face and then the following morning apologised for the injuries he had caused before becoming violent again. Ms Corrigan said Curtis pulled her by her hair around the bathroom and then punched her in the face while he was on the phone to his mother, causing her to bleed heavily. She said a 'period of normality' followed for two hours before Curtis again became violent, knelt on Ms Corrigan's chest and said: 'I'm going to kill you.' The victim was dragged by her hair and neck into the bathroom, thrown on the wet floor and locked in for 45 minutes. After Ms Corrigan was released from the bathroom, Curtis threatened her with a knife, calmed down for half an hour, then grew violent again, throwing a mobile phone at her head. He kicked his girlfriend on both legs, slapped her face, stamped on her and wrapped his arms around her neck in what she described as a 'chokehold' during an assault lasting over half an hour, the court heard. At one point while Ms Corrigan lay crying on the bed saying, 'Please stop hurting me,' Curtis started crying and said: 'Look at what you made me do. You're making me out to be like my Da and I hated my Da for what he used to do to my Ma.' Cameron Curtis Ms Corrigan told gardaí that she became incredibly scared and believed she was going to die when Curtis locked her in the bathroom a second time and said he was going to get a scissors. The court heard she managed to get out of the bathroom and locked him out of the bedroom but he kicked the door down and then left when she started screaming. Gardaí attended the scene and Ms Corrigan was treated for her injuries which were photographed. Some days later, Ms Corrigan was again attacked by Curtis in the room next door, as the previous room was inhabitable because of the damage done during the previous assaults. He kicked and punched her repeatedly, accused her of cheating, demanded her Snapchat password, dragged her by the hair and strangled her by squeezing her throat until she couldn't breathe and felt she was going to get sick. Ms Corrigan managed to raise the alarm and gardaí arrived and arrested Curtis. He was deemed unfit for interview for a lengthy period and then underwent six garda interviews, making certain admissions to offences on August 16 but none on previous dates. He has no previous convictions. Mr White said there was a lot of domestic violence in his client's background from his father towards his mother. 'Violence begets violence, regrettably,' said Mr White, adding that it's no excuse for this type of behaviour. Counsel said jealousy played a 'major role' in the offending although it wasn't an excuse. He said Curtis is unlikely to come before the court again and is still in a relationship with Ms Corrigan. The court heard that Curtis has been in custody for these offences since August 19 last, apart from one month when he was released on bail. Judge Orla Crowe ordered a probation report to be prepared to assess Curtis' suitability for several programmes including anger management. She adjourned the case until July 13 for finalisation.
New Statesman
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
What does Adam Curtis know?
Photo byOn or about May 1979, the British character changed. That, in a sentence, is the argument of Adam Curtis's new documentary series Shifty. The election of Margaret Thatcher was the beginning of a revolution she helped accelerate but could never control, one involving economics, physics and ideology. Our nation – fretful, immiserated, lonely – was created in the two decades that followed. The adjectives most often used to describe Curtis's recent work tend to be related to drugs: hallucinatory, trance-like, psychedelic. They are apt. Though his earlier films featured interviews and televisual strictures, now he works through a combination of montage and caption, ditching even the nasal narration that once characterised his work. Some storylines he pursues for a full episode, others receive a mere 30 seconds of fame. The effect is disorientating, a constant swaying between plot and subplot. But sudden contrast is Curtis's fetish: gentlemen in cricket whites beneath skeletal electric pylons; shots of glass-and-steel towers immediately followed by a horse dying in a field. However, despite this reputation for experimentation, you get the sense that the scenes he is most drawn to are sober, humdrum, everyday. So, while you have Thatcher scuttling about laying tables for state banquets and trying to force monetarism to work, you also get nightclubs, barbers and police interviews – all the inventory of history from below. Sometimes you wonder where such moving footage comes from: who was letting documentarians into their house parties in 1981? But no matter. Such is the capaciousness of the BBC's archive that serves as Curtis's quarry, he doesn't have to show or tell you. You simply see. When he's doing history from above, though, Curtis is, by his own standards, dealing with a conventional arc. We move in a familiar sequence from Thatcher to Big Bang, from deindustrialisation to MDMA, from mass politics to mass atomisation. Perhaps it is a sign of the shifting historiography of the recent past that this feels more like restatement than reinterpretation. Thatcher is no longer seen as Britain's saviour on the right or left. We all know the bankers are crooked and the politicians are powerless. And did anyone else hear that Max Clifford was a wrong 'un? However, these familiarities are diversified by much more Curtis-like swerves into the strange and the eccentric. Like the story of Stephen Knight, a local reporter who became a national figure for claiming in his book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution that the Victorian murders were linked to both the Freemasonry movement and the British royal family. Knight went on to write another conspiratorial book about the Freemasons before his early death from a brain tumour. Though Knight is scarcely remembered today, for Curtis he is illustrative of a paranoid society growing fearful and sceptical of its elites. The title of this series ('shifty') is a description of what happens 'in societies when the foundations of power begin to move'. It's something we all feel – almost to the point that you wonder if it is truly confined to the last two decades of the 20th century in Britain. The Sixties and Seventies – with their own depressive introspection, aristocratic crack-up, and stewing industrial conflict – could surely have served as part of the same canvas. At times Curtis overstretches himself, conflating the late-20th century with modernity in the broadest terms. Aside from Mrs Thatcher, Curtis's main protagonist is probably Stephen Hawking, whose hyper-rational analysis of the cosmos Curtis places in parallel with the penetration of market forces into the soul of Britain. It is difficult to see these phenomena as coterminous. At other moments, his captions are slightly strident, almost drunkenly so: 'The concept of privatisation had been invented by the Nazis.' 'Do you really believe that, sir, or are you just trying to make us think?' So Dakin asks his teacher Irwin in Alan Bennett's The History Boys as he hears the mythos of the First World War being swept away. I would ask Curtis the same question. But in Bennett's play, the boys learn that sincerity and iconoclasm are both necessary instincts. As a rare historian who is willing to prioritise sweep, argument and craft over the accumulation of credible detail, we are fortunate to have Adam Curtis. Shifty BBC iPlayer [See also: Amol Rajan's Ganges vanity project] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
Politico
12 hours ago
- Business
- Politico
Senate GOP bets softer clean energy cuts won't come back to bite them
'Prices are going to go up, there are going to be energy shortages, and it's going to be the Republicans' fault,' said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who has predicted the GOP bill would strand hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and have a 'crazy' impact on jobs. Republicans also are risking factory shutdowns by repealing incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles and other renewable energy components. New manufacturing plants have sprung up across the country since the passage of the IRA based on the expectation that there would be strong demand from consumers. But some Republicans argued the legislation ultimately struck a careful balance — allowing planned projects that were counting on stable policy to proceed while achieving their goal of sunsetting tax credits they argue are subsidizing mature industries. 'I just felt so strongly that how we transitioned off of these [tax credits] made all the difference in the world,' said Curtis. 'And if we didn't get it right, we'd put tens of thousands of people out of jobs. We'd have stranded billions of dollars in investment. We'd hurt our grid. We don't get the AI. And it would impact utility prices for the average consumer.' Curtis said he communicated to Senate Majority Leader John Thune that the clean energy issue was a 'red line' for him, meaning he would have voted against the megabill if it contained sharper cuts like those included in the bill passed by the House and pushed by some senators. He worked behind the scenes with Murkowski and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), whose state gets a majority of its electricity from wind farms, to soften some of the cuts ahead of the final floor vote. That includes a carve-out that gives wind and solar projects a one-year extension to begin construction. Projects after that would be required to be placed in service by the end of 2027, echoing language in the Senate's updated text last week. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), whose state is No. 4 in wind power nationally, said the one-year grace period strikes the right balance between ending the subsidies and not impacting shovel-ready projects. 'Those folks that are already in line, that have already got investment dollars, that are already going — they're going to fall in this one year,' he said. 'They're going to get some construction in the ground in the next 12 months. I don't think they'll have a challenge doing that.' But the late changes risk further deepening a rift with conservatives who were looking to lock in a stricter eligibility standard embedded in the House-passed bill based on when projects enter into service, while giving them less time to start construction to qualify for credits. As the House moves to take up the bill this week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leader of the hardline Freedom Caucus, said on X the changes secured by Senate Republicans in 11th-hour negotiations represent a 'deal-killer of an already bad deal.' In addition to phasing out the credits, Republicans will likely face pressure on another key goal: Cracking down on the ability for Chinese companies to benefit from the subsidies. Late in the negotiations, Republicans added the new excise tax on solar and wind plants containing parts exceeding certain thresholds from foreign entities of concern. Developers said that tax would have been a death knell for the industry had it not been removed. Hayes, the former GOP staffer who is also a founding partner at lobby firm Lot 16, said beating back that excise tax was a key win since it would have pushed up energy prices 'and, quite frankly, stood out as one of the more misguided ideas anyone has come up with — from either party — in a very long time.'
Filipino Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Filipino Times
Anne Curtis returns to television: 'I was nervous'
After a brief hiatus from teleseryes, Anne Curtis makes her much-anticipated return to primetime television. During the grand media launch of the Filipino adaptation of the acclaimed Korean drama It's Okay to Not Be Okay, Curtis opened up about her initial apprehensions about returning to acting. 'Ang tagal ko nang hindi umarte so there were a lot of jitters, especially sa first day. But I was supported by amazing actors and guided by our team captain, Direk Mae [Cruz-Alviar]. Even today, sa pagbati pa lang, kitang-kita na kinakabahan ako. But you know what? I really learned from the story that it's okay to not be okay,' the actress said in an interview with ABS-CBN. The original Korean series, which explores themes of mental health and emotional healing, starred Seo Yea-ji, Kim Soo-hyun, and Oh Jung-se. In the Filipino adaptation, Curtis steps into the role originally portrayed by Seo, a children's book author with antisocial personality disorder who develops a deep connection with a psychiatric ward caretaker. The role is originally played by Kim, and will be portrayed by Joshua Garcia. 'We have added some new characters to make it our own. It's a universal story a healing story. It's a beautiful feeling of love. At the end of the day, every Filipino whether family or friends will be able to relate,' Curtis said. Joining Curtis and Garcia in the star-studded cast are Carlo Aquino, Agot Isidro, Bobot Mortiz, Xyriel Manabat, Rio Locsin, Enchong Dee, and Francis Magundayao.
Herald Sun
19 hours ago
- Business
- Herald Sun
$20m upgrade for TAC HQ targets working parents, access, inclusion
Centuria Capital Group has revealed a $20m planning refurbishment of the TAC building at 60 Brougham St, Geelong. A school zone for working parents to bring their children before and after school is one of the new features a planned $20m upgrade will deliver for workers at Transport Accident Commission's Geelong headquarters. The property's owner, listed $20B real estate funds manager Centuria Capital Group, plans to refurbish the 60 Brougham St building, delivering a suite of new facilities to encourage people into the office, improve its environmental credentials and hopefully win a new lease after 2029. The additions include a gymnasium with an indoor sauna, a cold recovery room and multipurpose room for pilates or yoga; and end-of-trip facilities such as showers, 180 lockers and parking for 80 bicycles. RELATED: New FOMO pressure facing Geelong buyers From shop to shortcut: Laneway wins award Global second-hand fashion fave eyes big entry to Geelong Gender-neutral toilets, a multi-faith room for reflection or prayer, multiple parents rooms with private spaces including microwaves, changing areas, wet areas and various forms of seating are designed to foster inclusion, while the school zone will be fitted with televisions, reading areas and desks. The refurbishment will upgrade the 16-year-old facade by removing panel cladding and coloured boxes around windows; install a new entrance lobby, upgrade bathroom facilities on each floor, including new dedicating facilities for people with a disability; and add a ground floor business hub and meeting areas. Parents room are one of the new features designed to woo office workers, including updated bathrooms and new dedicating facilities for people with a disability on each floor. New facilities will include a sauna, gender-neutral bathrooms and a cold recovery room. More multipurpose spaces will allow for activities within the building. The dormant Corio St retail precinct will have new landscaping, seating and decking, while community gardens and event spaces will maximise other outdoor spaces, including barbecue facilities on the refreshed level five balcony. Head of funds management Jesse Curtis said Centuria wants to make the building 'best in class' and bring 'Park Hyatt luxury to Geelong', with full electrification and targeting a minimum 5.5-star NABERS rating, a 6-star Green Star rating and a WELL Gold rating. 'We've had numerous examples where we've been able to refurbish buildings and retain tenants, and they've been extremely happy and occupied our buildings for a very long period of time,' Mr Curtis said. An artist's render shows how the $20m upgrade would change the exterior of the building at 60 Brougham St, Geelong. End of trip facilities will include storage for 80 bicycles, showers and 180 lockers. The upgrade was planned for the past five years ago, but was delayed by Covid, he said. The refurbishment comes as the TAC considers its next building lease in Geelong when its current lease expires in 2029. While remaining at 60 Brougham St is one option, there's still competition including from approved multistorey office projects within Geelong's CBD. Centuria has a $7B office portfolio across Australia and New Zealand, which focuses on suburban and campus-style buildings, such as the TAC headquarters. The new spaces at TAC are part of a reworking of the building's floorplates to improve efficiency. Landscaping will include decking and seating to activate spaces outside the building. A new-look lobby would welcome people to the building. While there will be an additional business centre and meeting spaces on the ground floor. 'What we've seen across our portfolio – this is probably more general than specific to TAC – is people's use of space is changing,' Mr Curtis said. 'People aren't necessarily taking less space, they're just changing the way they use the space. 'So where we can create a one-stop shop, where you have a gym and different outdoor areas, communal spaces and the ability to collaborate in different ways, or bring that family and home life to be a little more flexible, we're starting to change the way we use our buildings right across our portfolio.' The project is still in planning phase, but work is expected to start in the second half of 2025. 'We're anticipating minimum disruption to our occupied during that period.'
