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A further 40 who remain in Syria are expected to be returned in two separate repatriations in coming weeks. This blog is now closed

Split over colour of heart symbol – and who it represents – and date of annual commemorationAn emotionally charged dispute over how best to memorialise Covid in the UK risks dividing people bereaved over the course of the pandemic.A split has emerged over whether a red or yellow heart should become the long-term symbol of loss, and over the date of an annual commemoration. The crux of the dispute is a claim from some people who lost loved ones to Covid that their experience “needs to be treated differently” than those bereaved during Covid. Continue reading...

Former DPP Starmer tried to send head of News UK Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking 10 years agoTen years ago Keir Starmer attempted to send Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking.Now Starmer could cause another headache for the boss of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire. She has to work out how her Tory-backing newspapers – which include the Sun and the Times – handle the growing popularity of the man who is favourite to become the next prime minister. Continue reading...

Children in a ‘wild new world’ but mothers could face continued controls, including ankle monitors and curfews

Ben-Gvir, a defender of Jewish extremists, poised to become powerful mainstream forceWhenever the far-right politician Meir Kahane got up to speak in the Knesset after winning his Kach party’s only ever seat, in 1984, the rest of the plenum would walk out. Even the hardline prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Shamir, called the rabbi’s anti-Arab movement “negative, dangerous and damaging”. Kach was banned from politics a few years later for inciting racism.Four decades on, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still raging, and Israel’s political sphere is more rightwing than ever before. The country will hold its fifth election in less than four years next week. Kahane’s disciple Itamar Ben-Gvir is on course to become a powerful mainstream force. Continue reading...

PM previously cut aid and allowed use of international development money for domestic purposes, such as housing Ukrainian refugeesBritain is spending more of its international development budget at home than in poor developing countries, development experts have said.A large proportion is being spent on housing refugees, mainly from Ukraine, according to the Centre for Global Development (CGD). Continue reading...

Marketing lecturer Geoffrey Fripp is pursuing more than $526,000 in damages

Russia says mobilisation of reserves is over; power cuts hit 4 million Ukrainians; Ukraine demands Iran stop arming Russia with drones

After former Coalition government repeatedly sided with US against it, Labor has shifted position to abstain

Man posing as Brazilian academic José Assis Giammaria thought to have used his time in the country to build up a deep-cover identityA suspected Russian spy who posed as a Brazilian academic before his arrest this week by Norway’s domestic security agency spent years studying at Canadian universities with a focus on Arctic security issues.The man, who called himself José Assis Giammaria, worked as researcher at the University of Tromsø and was arrested on suspicion he had entered Norway under false pretences. On Friday, prosecutor Thomas Blom named the man as Mikhail Mikushin, adding that Norway’s domestic security agency was “not positively sure of his identity, but we are quite certain that he is not Brazilian”. Continue reading...

Merseyside police said a man had been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender and was being questioned by detectivesA man has been arrested in connection with the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool.Olivia was fatally shot in the chest at her home in Dovecot, Liverpool, on 22 August. Continue reading...

Simon Murray, official overseeing programme, said he is concerned at the number of people who have died before receiving anythingVictims of the Windrush scandal have expressed frustration at the slow progress of the compensation scheme at the first national conference of a coalition of grassroots organisations fighting for justice for those affected.The newly appointed Home Office minister Simon Murray stressed that improvements have been made to the compensation scheme for the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of British people wrongly classified as illegal immigrants. However, he acknowledged that there was more work to be done to ensure swift payments were made to people affected by it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Inflation, energy prices and Liz Truss’ mini-budget are contributing factors to cuts local leaders described as unprecedentedLibraries and children’s centres are closing and home pick-ups for young disabled people being cancelled as councils try to meet a £3.2bn budget shortfall next year.With inflation and energy prices eating into budgets, local authorities across the UK are facing a record black hole that is unlikely to be plugged by central governmentas the Treasury is seeking to squeeze spending to make up for a £30-50bn shortfall in the public finances. Continue reading...

Ukraine president says there were 8,000 air strikes; air force spokesman says Ukraine has shot down hundreds of Iranian-made drones

Normunds Freibergs, Jacobus Stankevicius and Ruta Stankeviciene took man’s passport and stole estimated £10,000 in wagesTwo men have been jailed and a woman given a suspended sentence for “enslaving a man to line their own pockets”.Normunds Freibergs, 40, and his accomplices Jacobus Stankevicius, 59, and Ruta Stankeviciene, 57, exploited and abused the vulnerable victim, whom they forced to work to pay off debt they claimed he owed them. Continue reading...

Twelve officers face charges including rape, murder and torture over response to post-election protestsIn a landmark decision, 12 Kenyan police officers will face charges of crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on post-election protests in 2017, prosecutors have announced.The charges include rape, murder and torture and the case of a six-month-old girl whose death became a symbol of police brutality during the election aftermath. Continue reading...

Opposition says it can assuage bill’s critics as SNP supporters fear more amendment attemptsScottish Labour has pledged to “bring people together” over the issue of gender recognition reform after an intense Holyrood debate on proposals to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal sex that saw the Scottish National party suffer its biggest backbench revolt in 15 years of government.Although the gender recognition reform bill easily passed the first of three legislative stages on Thursday evening with a vote of 88 MSPs in favour to 33 against, with four abstentions, as the legislation enters the amendment stage supporters are concerned that some key elements – such as the reduction in the age someone can apply for a gender recognition certificate to 16 – may be lost. Continue reading...

Chris Heaton-Harris obliged to call new poll after deadline to restore devolved government expiresThe Northern Ireland secretary has announced he will call an election for the Stormont assembly but refused to name a date.Chris Heaton-Harris said on Friday he would do his “legal duty” to call an election within 12 weeks and promised to give more detail next week after talks with Northern Ireland party leaders. Continue reading...

Authors and politicians have accused the US comedian of projecting an American cultural context on to the UKThe row began with a single call to a UK radio station, was stoked by one of America’s best-known comedians and ended with former cabinet ministers wading in – and Downing Street, too.At the heart of the furore: a claim that Rishi Sunak had experienced a racist “backlash” after becoming the UK’s first British-Asian prime minister. Continue reading...

White Disaster (White Car Crash 19 Times) to go under the hammer in New YorkSix months after a vivid image of Marilyn Monroe smashed records when it sold for $195m, a rather more dark and brutal work by the cult pop artist Andy Warhol may also be about to fetch a large sum.White Disaster (White Car Crash 19 Times) – repeated graphic black and white images across a huge canvas measuring 12ft tall and 6ft wide – is expected to sell for at least $80m in New York next month. Continue reading...

Kiama mayor says chosen site has no support infrastructure and viable alternatives for development were overlooked

Former intelligence select committee chief warns issue threatens to undermine confidence in sharing sensitive informationSuella Braverman is under pressure to answer fresh questions about alleged “security breaches”, as a former head of parliament’s intelligence and security committee warned the row threatened to undermine officials’ confidence in sharing sensitive information with her.The account given by the home secretary and backed up by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, when he defended reappointing her just six days after she was found to have broken the ministerial code were challenged by government insiders and a senior Conservative MP. Continue reading...

Luke O’Connor died in hospital after attack near a large halls of residence in Fallowfield area of cityFamily and friends have paid tribute to a “lively, bubbly, beautiful” university student who was fatally stabbed near a large halls of residence in Manchester.Greater Manchester police said Luke O’Connor, 19, was stabbed on Wilmslow Road in Fallowfield at about 2am on Wednesday. He was given CPR at the scene but later died of his injuries in hospital. Continue reading...

Truss filled her cabinet with friends. Johnson said he wanted ‘tired old lions, so I can be king lion!’. The new PM takes a different tackWhen Liz Truss entered Number 10, she had very limited political capital. She had been the first choice of fewer than 50 MPs, had exiled many big beasts to the backbenches and had inherited a parliamentary party with grave doubts about her abilities and her project.Rishi Sunak has a far healthier inheritance. Not only is the economic picture beginning to improve with lower gas prices and a stabilising pound, but he has broad goodwill from all but the most hardcore wings of his party. Continue reading...

Ex-provincial minister convicted over death of his wife attended speech arguing government is ‘too lenient’ on violent offendersThe conservative government of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is under scrutiny after a convicted murderer was invited to attend its tough-on-crime speech.On Wednesday the province’s lieutenant governor, Russell Mirasty, presented the throne speech, outlining the conservative administration’s agenda and arguing the federal government were “too lenient” on violent offenders. Continue reading...

Relatives pay tribute to ‘bright, funny young woman’ who had a ‘smile that lit up the room’The family of Leah Croucher said their hopes of finding her alive were “extinguished in the cruellest and harshest of ways” after her body was discovered earlier this month, three years after she disappeared.The 19-year-old’s relatives said she was a “bright, funny young woman” with a “smile that lit up the room”, as they paid tribute to her in a statement released on Thursday. Continue reading...

Arms control advocates say changes from Trump era outlined in Nuclear Posture Review do not go far enoughThe Biden administration has confirmed it will cancel a submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile programme begun by Donald Trump, as part of its review of nuclear policy.The administration will also retire a gravity bomb, the B63, from its arsenal as part of its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), but arms control advocates argued the changes from the Trump era did not go far enough. Continue reading...

DfT says current penalty no longer acts as deterrent for evasion, which costs taxpayers about £240m a yearRail passengers caught travelling without a valid ticket on trains in England will face a fine of £100 from early next year – a fivefold increase from the current level.The Department for Transport (DfT) said the fines were being increased for the first time since 2005 because they no longer acted as a deterrent against fare dodging. Continue reading...

Manston processing site ‘gummed up’ as more than 100,000 asylum claims waiting to be decided, says select committee chairA migrant processing centre in Kent is “catastrophically overcrowded”, with people waiting for their applications for asylum to be processed kept in inhumane conditions and guards not being trained properly, a union leader says.Criticism of the government’s handling of the facility is mounting, with the chair of a parliamentary select committee saying a “crisis” was brewing given the backlog of more than 100,000 cases. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lobby group links technology to identification of people barred from venues for disorderly behaviour

‘We did not hear from any detectives, no police. Nothing. For five full days. That was their opportunity’ said Mechelle Turvey

Ksenia Sobchak, media personality and daughter of Vladimir Putin’s one-time boss, was subject of arrest orderThe Russian journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak – the daughter of Vladimir Putin’s one-time boss – has fled to Lithuania, intelligence services in Vilnius said, after police in Moscow raided one of her homes.A well-known media figure in Russia, Sobchak first became famous as a reality show presenter before embarking on a career in journalism. She also ran for the Russian presidency in 2018, a move her critics said was a publicity stunt intended to help the Kremlin create the impression of competitive elections. Continue reading...

Labour calls for ‘proper windfall tax’ on oil and gas while TUC describes profits as ‘obscene’

Estate agent's results come as report predicts UK mortgage lending is heading for big slumpThe London estate agent Foxtons has flagged a “less certain” sales market, as it reported a 25% rise in third-quarter revenues driven by higher rents and longer contracts for tenants.Revenues in the three months to 30 September rose to £43.8m, taking revenues for the first nine months of the year to £109m, up 11% on a year earlier. Continue reading...

Consulates inundated with inquiries, with 700,000 descendants thought to be entitled to fast-track nationalityOnce Spaniards looked across el charco (the pond) for refuge. Now traffic is expected to go the other way after Spain passed a law granting citizenship to the grandchildren of people exiled under the Franco dictatorship.Lawyers and consulates in central and South America say they have been inundated with inquiries after the passing of the Democratic Memory law, which seeks “to settle Spanish democracy’s debt to its past”. It is estimated that as many as 700,000 people could be eligible for citizenship under the law, which passed the upper house of parliament on 5 October and came into effect on 21 October. Continue reading...

Jemma Mitchell murdered Mee Kuen Chong after victim backed out of giving her £200,000 to repair homeA woman has been found guilty of killing her friend and dumping her headless body more than 200 miles away in order to inherit hundreds of thousands of pounds.Jemma Mitchell hit Mee Kuen Chong, 67, over the head with a weapon at her London home and left her decapitated and badly decomposed body in woodland in Salcombe, Devon, two weeks later, it was alleged. Continue reading...

Blasts heard as security forces reportedly open fire on protesters mourning death of Kurdish womanProtests have raged through the night in Iran after thousands of mourners marked 40 days since the death of Mahsa Amini, which sparked a wave of unrest across the Islamic republic.Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on 16 September, three days after her arrest in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic dress code for women. Continue reading...

About 2,000 homes could be purchased or retrofitted under plan being announced by Anthony Albanese and Dominic Perrottet

Promo for single Anti-Hero originally showed the singer reading the verdict ‘fat’ from her bathroom scalesThe video for Taylor Swift’s song Anti-Hero, the lead single from her new album Midnights, has been altered days after its initial release to remove the word “fat” from one of its scenes.In the original clip, directed by Swift, the 32-year-old singer and songwriter steps on to a bathroom scale whose dial spins to the reading “Fat”. In the new version of the clip, viewable below, Swift steps on to the scale, receiving a look of disapproval from a doppelganger also played by Swift, but no reading is shown. Continue reading...

Tory chair says people should be safe to go to World Cup, after James Cleverly’s call for fans to ‘respect’ cultureThe Conservative party chair has said that LGBTQ+ football fans travelling to next month’s World Cup in Qatar should not have to compromise on their sexuality, despite his cabinet colleague, the foreign secretary, saying that fans should “respect” Qatar’s culture just a day earlier.Speaking to LBC Radio, Nadhim Zahawi said that no one should have to compromise on their identity if they wanted to attend the World Cup. He said: “I would say you should not compromise on your identity or your sexuality or your sexual preference in any way. Of course you are safe to go to the World Cup. No one should have to compromise at all in my view. Continue reading...

Congress votes to scrap daylight savings and just keep standard time, meaning end to changing clocks twice a yearPedro López, an office worker in the Mexican state of Veracruz, gets up before dawn, and drives in the moonlight an hour and a half to his job. “Leaving my house in the dark every single day and driving under the moon is horrible, especially in a landscape as beautiful as Veracruz,” he said.But, for half a year at least, he’ll be driving in the sunlight. Mexico’s congress voted on Wednesday to abolish summer time, and when Mexicans set their clocks back this weekend, it will be for the last time. In March, they will not be turned forward. Continue reading...

Opposition leader also targeted Labor over school curriculum, saying parents were worried about ‘radical gender theory’

After a week of jury deliberations the case reached a crescendo at breakneck speed – and the chaos of those final moments didn’t stop with the decision

The Victorian Electoral Commission is examining donations made during the 24-hour fundraiser

Currently, officers may not be dismissed until all criminal appeals and disciplinary action are finalised

Magistrate rules TT-Line made no inquiries to ensure the horses were individually stalled and there was adequate ventilation

Tea Wright-Finger, 19, was last seen near Richmond, where temperatures could reach 42C this weekend

State to file amended defence after judge says it was illogical to find searches are reasonable and illegal

More than 250 literary figures rail against acquisition by Penguin Random House of book by conservative US supreme court justiceNearly 250 figures from the US literary world have signed an open letter protesting the acquisition by Penguin Random House of a book by the conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett.The hardline Catholic conservative was Donald Trump’s third appointee, her nomination rushed through by Senate Republicans after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal lion, shortly before the 2020 election. Continue reading...