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PM says anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, will be excluded from the schemePC Andrew Harper's killers will remain behind bars after Andy Burnham announced changes to the early release scheme aimed at easing prison overcrowding, saying he understood how strongly people feel about this issue".The prime minister said anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, would be excluded from the scheme, which would have made two of the officer's killers eligible for early release. It comes after Burnham previously ordered a review of plans for the early release of thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September. Continue reading...

Solomon Islands prime minister cancels his appearance, along with leaders from Fiji, Vanuatu and SamoaSeveral leaders have pulled out of a the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Palau at the eleventh hour.Solomon Islands prime minister, Matthew Wale, has cancelled his appearance after a no-confidence motion was lodged against him at home by the Solomon Islands home affairs minister, Manasseh Maelanga. Continue reading...

Protester Tess Asplund on the photo that made headlines, and why she sees it as a sign of the change in Sweden todayThe striking photograph showed a lone Black woman, her fist raised, standing in the path of hundreds of uniformed neo-Nazis on parade in 2016, and it made headlines across the globe.At the time, it was held up as a symbol of the resistance to the far right. But 10 years on, as Sweden gears up for elections in which the far right is expected to emerge as the second most-voted-for party, the woman in the photo sees it as a sign of the bewildering change that has gripped the Scandinavian country. Continue reading...

Missing woman's partner and daughters fundraise to join search in one of the hardest-hit areas of Nepal

Conditions are deteriorating in city of El Obeid and camps on its outskirts, with more people arriving every dayHumanitarian conditions in the Sudanese city of El Obeid and two camps on its outskirts are dire and deteriorating, according to people on the ground, as civilians displaced by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia continue to pour in from the surrounding countryside.The UN says more than 15,000 families have arrived since mid-July, joining more than 200,000 people who arrived in the first half of the year, according to government figures cited by Save the Children. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset

Checking for sewage spills has become as normal as checking the weather forecast, say swimmers on East Sussex beaches

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Even after a week in which Pauline Hanson and One Nation candidates tripped over themselves trying to explain key policies, voters still backed the partyThe One Nation hype machine went into overdrive after Saturday's Secret Harbour byelection but one thing is clear from the thumping victory.Despite the party's sustained surge in public support, Labor and the Coalition still don't have any idea how to calm an angry electorate and dint support for Pauline Hanson and her insurgent movement. Continue reading...

Saga surrounding purchase for outspoken rightwing regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso refuses to go awayThe outspoken rightwing leader of the Madrid region is under growing pressure to explain why her government spent 6.3m (5.4m) on a residential penthouse purportedly to serve as a temporary workspace while her offices were being renovated.Isabel Diaz Ayuso, a prominent member of Spain's opposition conservative People's party (PP), has been the president of the Madrid region since 2019. Continue reading...

Tories accuse Reform of peddling conspiracy theories' as row erupts in wake of Conservative leader's trip to RomeNigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch have spent years trading barbs and fighting for the rightwing vote. But now the party leaders find themselves in a much more bizarre struggle - for the affections of the rightwing Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.The row began on Monday when the Times published an article claiming that during a meeting in Rome, Meloni had advised the Conservative leader against doing a deal with Farage to unite the right. After complaints from Reform - and, reportedly, Meloni's team - the article was amended to remove that claim. Continue reading...

Social services minister says social media was playing a role in the increase of sexual violence among teenagers

Nepal requests foreign help in identification and storing of bodies, DNA testing and rescuing people from tunnels

The walls of a teaching hospital are filled with pictures of unidentified victims as authorities collect DNA samples and plan burials before morgues fill up

Matt Bradley and crew assaulted while interviewing woman who said settlers had driven family out of homeA Palestinian woman and an NBC News team are reported to have been attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday, amid worsening confrontations in the area.Benjamin Netanyahu said he condemned the violence committed by a handful of rioters". Continue reading...

Reporting season shows how consumers are responding to cost of living pressures and how retailers are responding

Bill Lee says he favors proposal to rename Nashville's international airport after legendary country singerBill Lee, the Tennessee governor, on Friday said he favored a proposal to rename Nashville's international airport after legendary country singer Dolly Parton, who died three days earlier at age 80.In a statement, Lee said he and the managers of the airport in Tennessee's capital city - where Parton resided - wanted to create a lasting tribute to her indelible legacy and the generations of people she inspired". He said he had spoken previously to the 11-time Grammy winner and her team, who were touched by the idea". Continue reading...

Tulshi Patel says mother Hemangini Jitendra Patel and aunt Hema Sunil Amin were last seen at Friendship Bridge on Nepal-China border Nepal-Tibet flash flood - latest updatesThe daughter of a woman missing in Nepal has told how she traced her mother's location through a TikTok video posted hours before the devastating flash flood hit.The catastrophic flash floods that hit Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday, thundering down valleys and sweeping away entire villages, have killed at least 675 people, while more than 3,000 remain missing. Continue reading...

Shadow minister for housing, communities and local government to resign with immediate effectJames Cleverly has resigned from the shadow cabinet to run for mayor of London.The Tory heavyweight, who was once home and foreign secretary and is shadow minister for housing, communities and local government, told the Sunday Times he will resign with immediate effect. Continue reading...

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen received the Congressional Space Medal of HonorThe Artemis II astronauts who flew around the moon in April received the US's highest space honor on Friday.Donald Trump presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the three Americans and one Canadian whose lunar flyby for the US space agency Nasa set a new distance record for humanity. Continue reading...

Three vessels and a helicopter deployed to monitor four ships travelling through the North Sea to the ChannelThe Royal Navy spent three days tracking Russian vessels as they passed through UK waters, it has emerged.The intense" 72-hour operation took place last week, with radars used to monitor four ships that made their way from the North Sea through to the Channel. Continue reading...

Former Duchess of York moved to Swiss chalet during fallout over her friendship with convicted child sex offenderSarah Ferguson will return to the UK after relocating to a Swiss chalet amid the fallout over the friendship between her and her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to reports.The pair were stripped of their royal titles in October over the scandal of their relationship with Epstein. According to the Sun, the former Duchess of York, 66, is renting a six-bedroom gated property in the home counties. Continue reading...

Family members pin photos of Nepal's missing to hospital wall as people try not to give up hope on loved ones

Attack on depot owned by Ukraine military causes detonations and huge fire, damaging residential buildingsAt least 37 people have been killed after a Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv's western suburbs that was storing explosive objects".The attack damaged at least 50 residential buildings, including a care home for elderly and disabled people, and sparked a huge fire and explosions in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region. The regional governor, Tymur Tkachenko, said a further 42 people, including four children, had been injured after the Russian drone strike. Continue reading...

Bridget Phillipson says government would not have to consider releasing prisoners early if Tories had created more capacityCells to hold newly arrested people could run out without the early prison release scheme, a government minister has said.Bridget Phillipson defended the plan to address the prison capacity crisis in England and Wales by releasing thousands of prisoners early, which has been criticised by domestic abuse charities, bereaved families and probation officers among others. Continue reading...

Nominated in three previous years, the rambunctious standup - one half of The Delightful Sausage - wins the prize for his show Rewilding while Marty Gleeson is named best newcomerThe annual Edinburgh comedy award has been won by the standup Chris Cantrill, two years after his comedy partner Amy Gledhill - in the raucous northern double act The Delightful Sausage - won the same prize.Cantrill, 42 and from Bradford, received the so-called Oscar of live comedy" for a show, Rewilding, about his new life in rural Northumberland, where an act of vandalism shocks the local community - and a spoof whodunnit ensues. It builds on the foundations laid in 2024 by Easily Swayed, which documented his move to the countryside and secured what was then Cantrill's third nomination (but first as a solo act) for the award. Continue reading...

Grammy award-winning American artist selected as 13th person to submit written work to Oslo-based projectThe next manuscript by the American artist Laurie Anderson will remain unseen for 88 years, as she becomes the 13th figure to contribute to the Future Library project.Anderson joins Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong and other prominent authors who have written secret manuscripts, which have been locked away until 2114. Continue reading...

Looking for an alternative to fast fashion, Eve Ogden Schaub decided to create a garment from homegrown flaxFrom crop tops to shorts and brightly patterned dresses, many of today's clothes are the result of fast fashion. But one woman is taking a radical approach to challenging this trend by growing her own dress.Eve Ogden Schaub is in the midst of a project to create a linen garment made from flax she is growing at home, documenting the process in videos shared on her Instagram account. Continue reading...

Searching for exoplanets and clues on planet formation, the Roman telescope will lift off Sunday morning in FloridaA $4.3bn space telescope that Donald Trump tried to kill is set to lift off from Florida early on Sunday as Nasa embarks on the next stage of its quest to unlock the secrets of the universe.The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope survived two rounds of proposed White House budget cuts, and will embark on a million-mile journey into deep space from a launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center at 7.26am ET, barring late technical issues or intervention from Florida's notoriously capricious summer weather. Continue reading...

Total peace' plan of previous government led only 99 of Colombia's 30,000 armed combatants to disarm, but new president Abelardo De la Espriella opposes peace agreementsIn mid-June, 99 guerrilla fighters were flown by helicopter to a small settlement in a rural area of southern Colombia where they lined up and, one by one, handed their weapons to government officials: rifles, pistols, machine guns and grenade launchers.They also stripped off their heavy tactical vests, field packs and camouflage uniforms, which were each piled into a bonfire to mark the beginning of a new life away from an armed conflict that has claimed nearly half a million lives in the last six decades. Continue reading...

Six more people hospitalised after incident at Big Church festival near SteyningA 41-year-old man has died and at least six other people have been injured after a large sign fell at a Christian festival in West Sussex, police have said.The man, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, was pronounced dead at the scene after the incident at the Big Church festival near Steyning on Friday afternoon. Continue reading...

In move that could generate millions, Exeter academics to deliver MA at National Defense University in RiyadhThe University of Exeter has approved plans for a formal partnership" with Saudi Arabia to train senior military officers and government officials, despite long-held concerns about the Saudi government's human rights record, the Guardian has learned.In a deal that could generate millions of pounds for the Russell Group university, Exeter academics will deliver an MA in applied security and strategy (also known as an MStrat) to a cohort at the National Defense University (NDU) in Riyadh. Continue reading...

Country star came to South Yorkshire town in 2007 for UK launch of the Imagination Library, her book donation schemeShane Jarman was up a ladder decorating a Christmas tree at the school where he was deputy headteacher when he got a call asking him to come to Rotherham hospital ASAP. It was December 2007 and Jarman's wife, Claire, had given birth the previous day to their first child, a girl called Emma, so of course he rushed to the phone. All was well, he was told, but that everything would become clear" when he got to the hospital.Once there, his wife told him - somewhat unexpectedly - that they were going to meet Dolly Parton. And literally within what felt like five minutes," he recalled, there were great camera flashes, lots of noise, lots of clicking and in walked this real big bundle of energy." Continue reading...

Australian-led trial finds low risk of side effects from common cholesterol-lowering medication for otherwise healthy older peopleTaking a common cholesterol-lowering medication can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke for people aged over 70, with a low risk of serious side effects, a world-first clinical trial led by Australian researchers has found.Statins are already commonly prescribed to people under the age of 75 who meet certain risk criteria, such as having diabetes and high cholesterol, to prevent them from having a major heart event such as a heart attack, stroke, or from requiring heart surgery. Continue reading...

Moving tariffs will cushion the blow from the October price cap rise and the increase widely predicted for JanuaryWith higher energy bills looming and warnings of worse to come in the new year, many households could save up to 173 a year by switching to a fixed deal.Millions of households in Great Britain will face the highest energy charges in three years after it was announced that the government's price cap will rise again in October. This will be the second increase in three months. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Number of times AI lies, ignores instructions and pursues goals in harmful ways almost doubles in JulyIncidents of AIs escaping users' control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways have hit a new high, according to research that also suggests the severity of deception and misalignment is worsening.Analysis of real-world loss of control incidents involving AI models flagged by businesses and individuals almost doubled in July compared with June, with more than 300 cases in the month, according to the Loss of Control Observatory, which monitors reports made by AI users on the social media platform X. Continue reading...

Planning delays and slow 5G upgrades could leave the UK unable to cope with a surge in AI-related trafficThe UK risks becoming a laggard in the global AI race as crucial telecoms upgrades to harness the technology fall behind rival nations, according to senior industry executives.The infrastructure AI race has centred on the need to build datacentres, and to ensure they have access to the huge water and energy supplies required to cool and supply the computational power to train and run AI models. Continue reading...

A plug-in solar kit that costs about $1,000 pays for itself in three years', one expert says

As one of Europe's biggest consumers of gas the UK may be particularly exposed to heightened price volatilityEurope is on course to enter the cooler months with gas stores at their lowest level in 13 years, which has triggered winter panic" among energy traders, experts have warned.The EU's gas stocks were 63% full in the last week of August, well below the 80% average for late August over recent years and among the lowest levels ever recorded for this time of year. Continue reading...

Former PM believes Northern Ireland will leave UK in the long term - but remains opposed to Scottish independenceThe former prime minister Gordon Brown has said it is inevitable that Ireland will become united at some point in the future, in a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian.While he added that any union would necessarily be a long process" and based on mutual agreement, Brown's comments are notable both because of his vehement opposition to Scottish independence, but also because of his involvement in government in efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Continue reading...

Architect of Srebrenica genocide is dead but those scarred by his atrocities say his ideology is still shockingly pervasiveTo most of the world, he was and will always be the Butcher of Bosnia", a grim epithet but one that still fails to fully convey the evil and horror inflicted on its people by Gen Ratko Mladi, who died in prison on Thursday.As commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, Mladi was responsible for the killing of an estimated 100,000 men, women and children during the savage breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He was most notoriously the architect of ethnic cleansing and the genocide at Srebrenica in which at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered. Continue reading...

More than 40 Australians are among several thousand people unaccounted for after catastrophic flooding on the Nepal-Tibet border

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The $134,000 cost of the statue of the former Victorian premier has been heavily criticised by the Liberal opposition

There are now 41 Australians missing, and four rapid response team members are expected to arrive in Kathmandu

Cleveland police say a total of 24 people arrested in investigation after crash that killed two officersSeven more men have been arrested as part of an operation tackling alleged organised crime after the head-on crash on the A66 that resulted in seven deaths, Cleveland police have said.Officers said four men, aged 21, 25, 35 and 40, were being held on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life after a vehicle crashed into a house in Steele Crescent, Middlesbrough. Continue reading...

About 125 firefighters tackle blaze at Neasden waste facility as nearby Amazon warehouse is evacuatedA large fire has broken out at a waste facility close to Wembley Stadium in north-west London, disrupting tube and train lines in the area.Twenty fire engines and about 125 firefighters were sent to tackle the blaze at a mixed-waste facility on an industrial estate in Neasden, less than a mile from the venue. Continue reading...

Nevada-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital seeks to acquire land to construct private road to development outside parkThe Trump administration is reportedly pushing to give a parcel of land inside Yosemite, the country's first national park and one of its most popular, to a Nevada-based private developer.Staff with the National Park Service have been exploring how the agency can give a quarter-mile parcel to a company operated by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the news outlet Notus reported on Friday, citing agency documents and unnamed sources directly familiar with discussions". Continue reading...

Official death toll approaches 600, with many of the missing Americans having been on a pilgrimage to a sacred siteAt least 90 Americans were still missing on Friday among almost 2,000 people unaccounted for following the catastrophic flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday.With the official death toll creeping towards 600 on Friday and expected to continue rising, there were survivors, victims and missing people from many nationalities. Continue reading...

Relatives really worried, but hopeful' as they wait anxiously for news in the aftermath of the flash flooding disaster