Russian news reports say a member of Russian punk protest group Pussy Riot has been hospitalised in grave condition for what could be a possible poisoning.

Relatives told the Meduza online news portal that Pyotr Verzilov had been undergoing emergency care since Tuesday. 

They said he fell ill after a court hearing for Veronika Nikulshina, a fellow member of the anarchist, art protest group.

News report quoted her saying his symptoms included losing his eyesight and ability to hear.

Ms Nikulshina said Mr Verzilov was being treated in the toxicology unit of a Moscow hospital, indicating a suspected poisoning.

Mr Verzilov, Ms Nikulshina and two other activists served 15-day jail sentences for disrupting July’s World Cup final.

They ran on to the field wearing police uniforms, briefly interrupting the match between France and Croatia. Pussy Riot said they were protesting excessive police powers in Russia. 

Mr Verzilov is married to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, the Pussy Riot member who spent two years in prison after a protest-cum-performance at a Moscow cathedral. 

"My brother Petya in resuscitation may have been poisoned," she tweeted. "In the toxicological department in a very serious condition."

It has become the health trend of 2018, with an array of athletes and  celebrities ditching dairy and other animal products in favour of a vegan  lifestyle. 

But it appears the health movement is increasingly facing a backlash – with  food producers ditching the word "vegan" and replacing it with "plant  based".

Britain looks set to become the latest country to follow suit, according to  experts who say the moral finger-wagging associated with veganism is  putting people off. 

One industry body said Europe will be the next place where the trend will  take off, following the lead of the US, while a group of academics  from the London  School of Economics have found some customers are turned off by vegetarian  sections in menus. 

For years the term vegan has been seen as a possible selling point for  healthy foods. 

But now American food producers have suggested the word makes people think  the food could be bland – or are simply put off by the connotations. 

Michael Robbins, from the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), told the  Daily Telegraph: "People liken plant-based to healthy eating and it’s a  very positive phrase and term. It’s certainly growing in popularity with a  number of food companies using plant based to promote their products". 

Such is the demand for plant based food among shoppers, the PBFA is working  to roll out a ‘plant-based certified’ food stamp to put on packaging. 

"There’s strong global demand for plant-based products – in many ways  Europe has been a leader on that," said Mr Robbins. 

Some companies have said they fear that the term has some stigma attached –  with some shoppers viewing the trend as a finger-wagging cult. 

Impossible Foods, a company which produces meat-free burgers designed to  replicate the taste of meat, has advised the 3,000 restaurants that serve  its burgers not to describe them as vegan on menus. 

Pat Brown, the company’s CEO, said: “For many people, their notion of a  vegan is someone who’s wagging a finger at them if they eat any animal  products. I’m vegan. But for a lot of people that term – it’s almost like  a cult”. 

British supplier Central Foods is already hoping its new range of frozen  meals will appeal to a wider audience. 

Its new Menuserve range – which includes cajun-spiced sweet potato roulade  and baked cheesecakes – is both vegan and gluten-free but markets itself as  plant based. 

“One of the key pieces of advice is to offer plant-based dishes that will  appeal to all diners, not just those who are vegetarian or vegan,” Gordon  Lauder, managing director of Central Foods, told The Caterer magazine. 

The same trend can be seen in restaurants, according to Bidfood, one of the  UK’s largest food wholesalers. “[They] need to position themselves as a  go-to destination for both meat eaters and vegans to remain competitive,”  Vicky Tripp, the company’s campaign manager told the magazine.

Beyond Meat, another meatless burger maker, also avoids the words vegan or  vegetarian in hopes of winning over carnivores.

It has pushed to have its  products sold in the meat sections of supermarkets, rather than what it  calls the “penalty box” of the frozen vegetarian foods section. 

A study by the London School of Economics earlier this year confirmed that meat  eaters can be deterred by distinctive vegetarian sections.

The researchers  found that presenting a vegetarian dish as the "Chef’s Recommendation" or  including a more appealing description of a non-meat meal lead to a greater  proportion of infrequent vegetarian eaters choosing a vegetarian option. 

Linda Bacon, one of the study’s authors, said: “Our findings suggest that  while certain restaurant menu designs can encourage some consumers to make  pro-environmental food choices they can have the opposite effect on others.” 

Since “vegan” is used to convey what’s not in a product, it can be  associated with deprivation, said Michele Simon, executive director of the  PBFA. “Plant-based,” she said, has a more positive connotation because it  explains what is in a food. 

“I think there’s room in the market for both terms,” she added, stressing  that some companies still proudly use the “vegan” label. 

Police in northern Spain launched an investigation after a dead wolf’s head and tail were left in a public swimming pool in a protest by farmers over attacks by wolves on their livestock.

The Guardia Civil’s wildlife protection unit is trying to find out who dumped the grisly remains at an open-air pool in the village of Infiesto, in the Picos de Europa mountain range of eastern Asturias.

The wolf is a protected species in Asturias, but angry protestors blocked country roads near the Picos de Europa National Park on Saturday, demanding more support as they fight to save their sheep, goats and calves from apparent wolf attacks.

To cries of “down with the National Park”, the leaders of the march read out a statement criticizing Asturian authorities who “publicise our area in order to attract people to visit our landscape and try our products, but who don’t care for the land or the people”.

Compensation schemes for dead livestock were insufficient and obsolete due to an increase in wolf attacks, protestors claimed, echoing farmers’ complaints in other areas of northwestern Spain, where the Iberian wolf roams.

“Our animals don’t die; they get killed,” said livestock farmers Jessica López and Kaelia Cotera.

But Spanish environmentalists paint a different picture of the health of the country’s wolf population, arguing that it is struggling to remain stable due to authorized hunting and poaching.

“The species is suffering a regression towards the northwest due to brutal hunting that prevents it from extending towards its traditional territories in the south,” said Ángel Sánchez at the presentation of a report he co-authored earlier this year that counted the number of Spanish wolves killed in 2017 at between 500 and 650.

The total number of Iberian wolves in Spain is estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 grouped into around 300 packs.

Some regions north of the Duero issue a hunting quota on wolves each year, while south of the river, where few wolves roam, hunting is banned.

Police in Venice have been accused of being overly zealous after ordering an acclaimed British artist to pack up his easel and stop painting in St Mark’s Square.

Ken Howard, OBE, was painting one of his favourite views of the piazza when two police officers approached him and told him to move on.

The 86-year-old was sheltering from the rain beneath the portico of the Procuratie, a vast palazzo that flanks one side of the famous square.

He had moved there after initially setting up his easel along the Riva degli Schiavoni, a stretch of canal bank a few hundred yards away.

The artist, a former president of the New English Art Club and a professor of perspective at the Royal Academy, told them he had used the same spot for decades but they remained unmoved.

“I first came to Venice in 1958 and I’ve never had a problem,” Prof Howard told The Telegraph.

“But of all of a sudden they’ve brought in new rules which say you have to have a permit. It’s a bit daft.”

On Tuesday he duly went to the municipal office which issues the permits, only to find that it was closed.

“They told me to come back tomorrow. I said ‘I’m terribly sorry but I’m busy and I have to work.’ I don’t think I’ll go back to the wretched office. I’ll take a chance.”

Dora Bertolutti, his Italian wife, said: “No one has ever tried to stop him from painting in Venice before. But when they told him to pack up, he did. He’s very British – he’s obedient and didn’t want to make a fuss. But he’s fed up with this stupid bureaucracy.”

Police defended the officers’ intervention. “They acted correctly. It was raining and lots of people were trying to pass along the portico of the Procuratie,” said Marco Agostini, the commander of the municipal police.

“If we had not intervened, there would have been complaints. He should have asked for permission. There are rules and they need to be respected by everyone.”

But the artist received an outpouring of support from ordinary Venetians after the incident, which happened on Sunday, came to light.

Many locals said the police had acted officiously and accused them of picking on the artist when they ignored the more objectionable behaviour of tourists who swim in Venice’s canals, jump off bridges and picnic in piazzas.

“Are we really sure that these should be the priorities of a city that is adrift?” said Marco Gasparinetti, from Gruppo 25 Aprile, a group of local campaigners.

“Under these rules even Canaletto would have been forced out of Venice. We express our solidarity with Mr Howard.”

Massimiliano Bergamo, another Venetian, listed Prof Howard’s many awards and titles and said he had devoted “the last 50 years” to painting Venice.

“But on Sunday, while he was paying homage to our city with one of his paintings of St Mark’s Square, two police officers ordered him to move, shooing him out into the rain. Shameful. I apologise on behalf of Venice.”

Born in London, Mr Howard studied at the Royal College of Art.

He served his National Service in the Royal Marines and later became the Imperial War Museum’s artist in Northern Ireland.

He worked with the British Army all over the world, from Hong Kong and Belize to Borneo.

He was elected a full Royal Academician in 1991 and is represented by the Portland Gallery in London.

“He is hugely popular and very highly regarded. He always paints out in the open – you’ll find him out and about come rain or shine. The fact that he is up every morning to paint is pretty impressive at the age of 86,” said Maria Morrow, the director of the gallery, where the artist will have a show next year.

“Venice is one of his three favourite places to paint, along with London and Cornwall. Lots of other artists follow his work and attempt to paint in a similar style,” she said.

Mr Howard’s work is in several public collections, including the Imperial War Museum, the Ulster Museum and the National Army Museum.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, once said he would take a "bullet" for the president. 

But instead of shielding his former client, Mr Cohen painted a target on his back on Tuesday and pushed him into the firing line. 

The brash New Yorker’s bombshell admission in court that he paid hush money to two women before the 2016 election at the direction of Mr Trump appears to implicate Mr Trump himself in a crime.

On the same day, a jury in Virginia found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty of eight financial crimes unrelated to the campaign. While that conviction does not directly implicate Mr Trump, it will bolster prosecutors in the office of special…

The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is using the “tactics of fascism” and “belongs on the dunghill of history”, rival MPs charged on Wednesday as they rounded on the party in parliament after weeks of simmering tensions over far-Right protests.

Alexander Gauland, the AfD leader, tried to use a budget debate to criticise Angela Merkel’s handling of riots which followed the suspected killing of a man by migrants in the east German city of Chemnitz.

But instead he and his party came under the most sustained attack from their rivals since becoming the first nationalists to sit in the German parliament since the sixties.

At one point the AfD’s 94 MPs staged a mass walk-out after coming under a steady barrage of criticism.

In an impassioned and uncharacteristic outburst, Martin Schulz, the former leader of the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), rounded on remarks by Mr Gauland a few months ago in which the AfD leader described the crimes of the Nazis were “a speck of birds*** in 1,000 glorious years of German history”.

“Well, Mr Gauland, the quantity of birds*** amounts to a dunghill, and you belong on the dunghill of German history,” Mr Schulz said.

Comparing the AfD’s rhetoric against migrants directly with that of the Nazis, Mr Schulz accused the party of seeking to make migrants into scapegoats for all of Germany’s problems.

“The reduction of complex issues to a single group of people is the classic tactic of fascism. This has happened before in this house. It’s time for democrats to stand up and fight back,” the former SPD leader said to a standing ovation from fellow MPs.

Earlier, Mr Gauland had accused Mrs Merkel of causing far-Right protests in Chemnitz with her migrant policy.

“The internal peace of our country is endangered and a rift goes through our society,” he said.

The AfD leader distanced himself from neo-Nazis who were filmed giving the Hitler salute but claimed they were a minority and that most of the protestors were “ordinary citizens”.

He accused Mrs Merkel of spreading “fake news” when she spoke of foreigners being attacked during the protests, despite video footage which appears to confirm the claim.

Mrs Merkel told the house she understood people’s anger, but refused to back down. 

“There is no excuse and no justification for hate speech, Nazi slogans or assaults on people who look different,” she said.

With Brexit now less than a year away, the European Union finds itself under assault from a new populist revolution. This six-part series examines the major challenges facing the continent. From immigration to defence, economy to enlargement and, indeed, to the very meaning of democracy itself: ‘The Future of Europe’ is now at stake….

It could be called the most conservative village in Poland: a clutch of low houses 100 miles north-east of Warsaw, where even the shop and tiny, two-seat hairdressing salon have a crucifix hanging above the door.

People have been settled in Kobylin-Borzymy since the 1400s, but this village in Poland’s old east only gained fame in October 2015 when it voted more…