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More than 2.4m deals are ending in 2024, raising fears of financial timebombMore than a quarter of UK homeowners on a fixed-rate mortgage are heading for sharp increase in monthly payments before the next election, in a financial timebomb that will rock the Conservatives just as voters prepare to choose the next government.With the Bank of England expected to increase its key interest rate next week for the 13th time, figures shared with the Guardian by UK Finance, the banking industry trade body, show more than 2.4m fixed-rate homeowner deals will expire between now and the end of 2024. Continue reading...

The opposition leader has promised the Liberals will ‘come back again’ at a gathering of party faithful

‘Lacklustre’ cover has meant a slow start to the alpine ski season but there is snow on the way, according to forecasts

Ukraine’s counteroffensive pushes south towards Mariupol; Putin confirms first nuclear weapons deployed to Belarus

Rishi Sunak says he is suspending anti-obesity measure to avoid restricting consumer options during cost of living crisisThe government is to delay its planned ban on two-for-one junk food deals – a key anti-obesity measure – for another two years amid the cost of living crisis.Rishi Sunak will shelve the expected measure targeting multi-buy promotions on products high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) to avoid restricting consumer options while prices remain high. Continue reading...

Extreme weather warnings issued across the US as more storms are expected; millions also warned of heatwaveAcross the world this month, temperatures have accelerated to record-setting levels, an ominous sign in the climate crisis ahead of a gathering El Niño that could potentially propel 2023 to become the hottest year ever recorded.Preliminary global average temperatures taken so far in June are nearly 1C (1.8F) above levels previously recorded for the same month, going back to 1979. Continue reading...

Bullying campaigner and founder of UK buddy system for Ukrainian refugees also among hundreds recognisedSuzanne Richards lost her son Joel, 19, brother Adrian, 49, and father, Pat, 78, in the 2015 terrorist attack in Sousse, Tunisia. Her other son Owen, then 16, was also shot and injured by the gunmen but survived the attack in which 38 people were killed.Their memories live on in the Smile for Joel charity, supporting families who are victims of homicide, which she and Owen run from her home in Wednesbury, West Midlands. Continue reading...

Public notice issued to watch out for the flippered creatures as they start to leave their breeding colonies and venture out into New ZealandSunbathing on roads, breaking through catflaps, visiting film sets, invading homes and taking in the heat of backyard spa bath covers – New Zealand’s “seal silly season” has officially begun and the country is bracing for an influx of adolescent marine mammals exploring the country’s highways, patios and golf courses.This week, the government issued a formal public notice that “seal season” had begun – and New Zealanders could expect to encounter higher numbers of the flippered young creatures out and about, exploring human-dominated spaces. From May until December, adult males and freshly weaned pups from New Zealand’s growing fur seal population will leave their breeding colonies and head out into the wider world – many for the first time. They’re young, inexperienced and prone to adolescent misbehaviour and mishaps, hitting the wider world en masse like a cohort of fresh-minted spring breakers. Continue reading...

Wooden artefacts dating from 15th century and bought from indigenous people were treated with pesticides while in museumGermany has returned two wooden masks of the indigenous Kogi community to Colombia but conceded that wearing the sacred artefacts in ceremonies may come with a health risk because they were treated with toxic pesticides during their time in German museums.The masks, which date back to the mid-15th century and have been held in ethnological collections in Berlin for over a century, were handed over to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, by his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a ceremony in Berlin on Friday. Continue reading...

Safe Third Country Agreement does not infringe refugee claimants’ rights to liberty and security of the person, court rulesCanada’s top court has ruled that an agreement with the United States aiming to control the flow of refugees across the shared border is constitutional, ending a lengthy legal challenge by advocacy groups who argue the deal violates the rights of asylum seekers.In a unanimous judgment released on Friday morning, the supreme court found the controversial Safe Third Country Agreement did not infringe refugee claimants’ rights to liberty and security of the person. Continue reading...

Centre of fighting has moved as Ukrainian forces slowly push back Russians, says Hanna Maliar, a deputy defence minister

Sir Michael Wilshaw says he now thinks differently about use of one-word headline grades in EnglandThe former chief inspector of schools in England Sir Michael Wilshaw has said Ofsted’s style of school inspections needs to change after the death of the headteacher Ruth Perry.Wilshaw, who led Ofsted until 2016, said Perry’s death, following an inspection that downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”, had changed his mind over the use of one-word headline grades to rate schools in England. Continue reading...

Government blocks sale of Charlotte Corday’s 1793 manifesto justifying murder of Jean-Paul MaratFrench officials are fighting for possession of a 1793 manifesto by a woman justifying her decision to stab a revolutionary leader to death, with local authorities saying they will take the case to court.Charlotte Corday was a 24-year-old member of a moderate faction during the French Revolution, who became alarmed at the way it was being taken over by violent extremists. Continue reading...

UN calls for urgent action to prevent further tragedies as police believe up to 500 people remain missingGreek authorities have rejected claims that a fishing boat that sank in the Mediterranean this week with the loss of potentially hundreds of lives capsized after the coastguard attempted to tow it, as the UN called for urgent action to prevent further tragedies.Authorities have confirmed 78 deaths and said 104 survivors – mostly from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan – had been brought ashore, but police believe as many as 500 are missing. Witnesses have reported that up to 100 children were in the ship’s hold. Continue reading...

Former PM in fresh controversy as he is accused of ‘clear breach’ of rules by taking up new job as Mail columnist

Government focused on no-deal preparation and did not foresee need for PPE, contact tracing or possible lockdowns

Acoba, Whitehall watchdog, says it only received Johnson’s application ‘30 minutes’ before his appointment at newspaper was announcedSir James Duddridge, the former parliamentary private secretary to Boris Johnson, has gone public with a version of a message from the former PM to his supporters this morning, urging them not to vote against the privileges committee report. (See 11.47am.) He has told Politico that “people just want to move on”. This is from Politico’s Emilio Casalicchio.No 10 has said that the government will not be taking a view on the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson, because it is a matter for individual MPs.[The PM] was in meetings all yesterday and continues to have meetings today. So he hasn’t fully had time to consider the report …The prime minister takes these processes very seriously, which is why he intends to take the time to study the report closely.The prime minister doesn’t think it’s appropriate to express a government view or a view on behalf of the government given that it’s a matter for individual MPs and MPs have a free vote on this on Monday. Continue reading...

Tory MPs have fallen out of love with the former PM, with fewer than 10 out of 350 coming out publicly in support“It’s all extremely depressing, all this tearing each other apart,” says one Tory MP and former minister whose career thrived under Boris Johnson but who now holds no candle for his former boss.“Most of us just want a period of silence from him so we can get on with saving what we can before the next election. But there’s not very much chance of that happening.” Continue reading...

Acoba says former PM has clearly broken rules by not telling it about column until half an hour before it was publicly announced

Andriy Pavelko to be tried on money laundering charges relating to the construction of an artificial grass factoryThe head of Ukraine’s Football Association, who is a serving member of Uefa’s executive committee, is to be detained for 60 days without bail before a trial on fraud and money laundering charges relating to the construction of an artificial grass factory.Andriy Pavelko will spend the next two months in a pre-trial detention centre in Lviv after a request from prosecutors, who accuse him of “embezzling” 26.5m Ukrainian Hryvnia (£600,000). Continue reading...

Alexander McCaskill left network following banner about Biden that read ‘wannabe dictator speaks at the White House’The Fox News producer thought to have been responsible for running a provocative banner headline about Joe Biden during Donald Trump’s response to his criminal indictment on Tuesday has left the network, according to reports.Alexander McCaskill, former managing editor of Tucker Carlson Tonight, resigned following the banner, or chyron, that read “wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested”, according to the Daily Beast. Continue reading...

They used to be the setting of some of the party’s most dramatic spats. But the biggest realignment of factional power has occurred behind close doors

Associations with 18-century counterfeiters can be seen across Calderdale, with The Gallows Pole tourism mainly welcomedAnyone who has watched the BBC Two drama The Gallows Pole could be forgiven for thinking of Cragg Vale and its surrounding villages in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, as bleak and unforgiving.But a surge of visitors captivated by the true story of a village’s illegal coin minting operation in the 1700s are finding it is anything but. Continue reading...

Serbia’s arrest of Kosovan police officers has added to concerns about relations between the two countriesThe EU has called Serbian and Kosovan leaders to Brussels for crisis talks after raised tensions sparked fears of violence between the two countries.EU leaders have already intervened on several occasions in recent weeks to try and de-escalate the situation but, after the arrest of Kosovan police officers by Serbia earlier this week, want face-to-face talks. Continue reading...

Rhun ap Iorwerth says Welsh pro-independence party is at a ‘difficult junction’ as he takes over

Investigators seek photos and videos of incident in which US man allegedly pushed two women down slope, killing onePolice in southern Germany are appealing for photos and videos taken by witnesses of an attack near Neuschwanstein Castle after an American man allegedly pushed two American women down a steep slope, killing one of them. A suspect was arrested following the attack.The German news agency dpa quoted police on Friday as saying they had so far received about a dozen submissions on a specially created website, but assume many more images were taken by tourists present at the site. Continue reading...

Officer in a serious but stable condition after being airlifted to hospital in LondonA man has been arrested after a police officer was stabbed in Maidstone.Kent police said the officer was stabbed at an address in Albion Place at about 8pm on Thursday. Continue reading...

Rockfall buries access road but stops just in front of hamlet, which had been evacuated in anticipationA large rockfall has narrowly missed a Swiss mountain village whose inhabitants were evacuated last month over fears of a landslide.The bulk of the rock, which geologists had warned was in danger of falling directly onto the village of Brienz, crashed to the ground on Thursday night, authorities in the Albula community in the canton of Graubünden said on Twitter. Continue reading...

Man in his 20s held on suspicion of murder after victim found with stab injuries in Camberwell, police sayA man has died after a stabbing in south-east London in the early hours of Friday.The victim, who was in his 40s, was found with stab injuries after officers were called to Southampton Way in Camberwell at 1.31am, the Metropolitan police said. Continue reading...

Authorities denied pregnant Indigenous girl her legal right to an abortion and ‘re-victimised’ her, UN child rights committee saysPeru violated the rights of a 13-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her father by denying her an abortion after she became pregnant, the UN has ruled.The United Nations child rights committee found this week that the Peruvian authorities had violated the rights to health and life of the girl, known by the pseudonym Camila, by failing to provide her with information and access to legal and safe abortion. Continue reading...

Nine suspects expected to face court as search enters third day and initial response to disaster is criticisedRescuers have launched the third and final day of their search for survivors of one of the Mediterranean’s worst boat disasters, as authorities detained nine suspected people-smugglers and criticism of Greece’s initial response mounted.The Greek coastguard said on Friday a helicopter, a frigate and three smaller vessels were searching waters 50 miles (80 km) from the southern town of Pylos where the fishing boat, reportedly carrying between 400 and 750 people, sank on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Lockwood, 64, is accused of six counts of indecent assault and three counts of rape against girl under 16The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl in the 1980s.The Crown Prosecution Service said Michael Lockwood, 64, who headed the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) until last year, had been charged with nine sexual offences. Continue reading...

Billionaire had an estimated wealth of $7.4bn and left no indication of who would take over after his deathSilvio Berlusconi, Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since the second world war, was a billionaire who had investments in everything from property and banking to the media and football. His death, at the age of 86, raises questions over the fate of an empire that was closely entwined with a political career that spanned almost three decades.Berlusconi had an estimated fortune of $7.4bn (£5.8bn) as of April 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. But he left no indication, at least not publicly, of who would take over his empire after his death. Continue reading...

Update on victims’ condition comes as police name man suspected of killing three people in rampageTwo of the people who were hit by a van in the Nottingham attacks are now in a stable condition, while a third has been discharged from hospital.Nottinghamshire University hospitals NHS trust confirmed the condition of the three patients on Friday, after it was reported earlier in the week that one of the victims was in a critical condition. Continue reading...

The plane experienced engine problems after takeoff at Groote Eylandt but ended up upside down when the pilot tried to return to the airstrip

Train drivers to strike on Avanti West Coast on 2 July, while overtime will be banned on LNER from 1 JulyTrain drivers will strike on Avanti West Coast and ban overtime on LNER in July, spelling disruption on both of Britain’s mainlines from London to Scotland.The Aslef union announced a one-day strike on Sunday 2 July on Avanti, with an ongoing overtime ban starting on LNER from 1 July. Continue reading...

Ruling dismays free speech activists who accuse Modi government of systematically shrinking space for dissentAn Indian court has pre-emptively stopped the screening of an Al Jazeera documentary about the country’s Muslim minority, fuelling fears that the right to criticise the government is being eroded.The Allahabad high court was acting on a public interest petition filed by Sudhir Kumar, an activist, who said he had “learned” from media reports that the documentary Who Lit the Fuse? portrayed India’s 172-million Muslims as living in fear of the Narendra Modi government. He also alleged that it showed state agencies acting against the interests of Muslims. Continue reading...

A professor was accused of antisemitism. The controversy has exploded into a bigger, messier debate about the future of psychology itselfLara Sheehi, a psychoanalytic therapist and psychology professor from Lebanon, is a charismatic, caring and deeply ethical mental health professional, according to her friends and allies, or part of something “toxic, aggressive and narcissistically delusional”, in the words of an email sent not long ago to more than a thousand colleagues.Sheehi has never made a secret of her political commitments. Her influences include Che Guevara and the psychiatrist and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon, and she sometimes sports a black-and-white keffiyeh, the checkered scarf associated with Palestinian resistance. Yet neither Sheehi nor her most caustic critics probably could have predicted the chain of events that followed a graduate psychology class she taught in October at George Washington University, in Washington DC. Continue reading...

Explosions reported in Kyiv during African peace initiative visit; Ukraine has retaken more than 100 sq km in counteroffensive, commander claims

‘Dragon boat water’ is breaking records in Guangxi region, as air conditioner use in Xinjiang puts strain on gridMany people in China have experienced a variety of weather extremes in recent days. Parts of southern and eastern China experienced prolonged periods of torrential rainfall, as the summer rains known as “dragon boat water” got off to a remarkable start.The city of Yulin in the Guangxi region experienced 35 hours of non-stop rain on 8 and 9 June, while the nearby city of Beihai was flooded after 614.7mm of rainfall over 24 hours in the same period. This is approximately a third of the city’s average yearly precipitation, and a June record for the Guangxi region. It is in stark contrast to May, when Guangxi experienced its lowest rainfall in 60 years. Continue reading...

Urgent meeting called for this weekend after allegations raised against the senator in parliament. This blog is now closed

Graduates now owe an average amount of £45,000, Student Loans Company figures have revealedOutstanding student loans in England have surpassed £200bn for the first time – 20 years earlier than previous government forecasts, as the number of students at universities continues to outstrip expectations.The Student Loans Company (SLC), which administers tuition and maintenance loans in England, said that the balance of government-backed loans reached £205bn in the current academic year, including £19bn worth of new loans to undergraduates. The figure has doubled in just six years. It reached more than £100bn in 2016-17 after the coalition government decided to increase undergraduate tuition fees from £3,600 a year to £9,000 in 2012. Continue reading...

As the UK is set to hold a conference on how to rebuild postwar Ukraine, many worry what will happen to funds sent through a system where money disappearsIf a fire is raging in a house, discussion of the colour of the replacement carpets is not normally the first priority, so to convene a Ukraine reconstruction conference in the midst of Kyiv’s counteroffensive may seem premature, and even tempting fate. The EU staged a large number of Syria reconstruction conferences premised on the defeat of Bashar al-Assad and look how that turned out.The UK’s two-day conference starting on 21 June is at least the sixth since Russia’s full-scale invasion. The first was held on 4 July 2022 in Lugano, Switzerland. Germany, holding the rotating chair of the G7, held an event in Berlin on 24 October, Paris got in on the act on 13 December, Warsaw on 13 February and the EU Committee of the Regions held an event just last month, on 25 May. Continue reading...

When people came from the Caribbean last century and were turned away by banks, many relied on communal trustAmong the challenges faced by the Windrush generation when they arrived to work in Britain in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was the refusal by many banks and building societies to allow them to open accounts, deposit savings or take out loans.Instead, they set up their own community schemes, based on those that had existed for generations in the Caribbean and elsewhere, that relied on trust. Continue reading...

Changes include the criminalisation of voyeurism and follow a string of acquittals in rape cases that triggered protests nationwideJapan has raised the age of consent from 13, among the world’s lowest, to 16 years old as lawmakers passed key reforms to sex crime legislation.A new bill, which also clarifies rape prosecution requirements and criminalises voyeurism, cleared parliament’s upper house in a unanimous vote. Continue reading...

Coroner makes recommendation following inquest into death of Brandon Clark, who fled into dangerous waters after vehicle stopPolice did everything they could to save the life of Indigenous man Brandon Clark who fled into dangerous river waters while evading officers and drowned, a coroner has found.Clark had been pulled over by police during a vehicle stop when officers discovered an alleged breach of bail. He was also affected by illicit substances at the time.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat becoming mired in inquiries into his eligibility and still faces the uncertainty of a vote in the military-appointed SenateMore than a month has passed since Thai voters went to the polls to choose their next government. Yet the country remains in limbo, with little clarity about whether the most popular party will be able to take power and with its leader placed under investigation.The progressive Move Forward party stunned many observers by winning the most seats in May’s election after promising change in a country that has been ruled by coup-maker Prayuth Chan-ocha for nine years. Move Forward, which is hugely popular among younger voters, has since announced it has agreed to form a coalition with other opposition parties.

Son was upholding wishes of victim not to have matter pursued by ‘secular authorities’ when he failed to report offending to police, lawyer says

The couple have produced just one podcast series since signing with Spotify in 2020 for a reported US$20m

Independent senator claims she faced a pile on and media only took notice when a white woman made similar allegations