World news | The Guardian

Warning follows group’s second ever full-year loss, and 3% fall in sales at WaitroseJohn Lewis and Waitrose staff will not get a bonus this year after the retail group fell into the red, posting a worse than expected £230m full-year loss.Sharon White, the chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, warned of job losses to come as she said “inflation hit us like a hurricane”, with higher freight, energy, labour and fuel bills adding £180m in costs. These helped push the group into the second ever full-year loss in John Lewis’s history. Continue reading...

Pensions tax break for the very wealthiest contrasts badly with whopping increases faced by basic and higher rate taxpayersAs an advertising slogan, “pay more get less” has limited appeal and so Jeremy Hunt was keen to focus on other aspects of his budget as he did the customary tour of the TV and radio studios to explain the reasons behind his tax and spending decisions.Two of Britain’s leading thinktanks felt no need for such reticence, and instead both the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies used their post-budget analysis to highlight that families are paying more in tax but getting less back from the state in return. Continue reading...

Joshua Bowles, 29, accused of stabbing woman outside leisure centre in CheltenhamA man accused of trying to stab a woman who works for the intelligence agency GCHQ has appeared in court.Joshua Bowles was charged with attempted murder following an investigation by counter-terrorism detectives after the incident last Thursday outside a leisure centre located about three miles from the GCHQ base in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Continue reading...

MPs to vote on statutory instrument relating to Windsor framework’s Stormont brake on Wednesday

Barrow charity shares impact of 22-year-old’s false allegations, as police say effects will be felt for ‘years to come’A charity in Barrow that supports victims of sexual exploitation said many of its clients were reluctant to report abuse to police because they “don’t want to be arrested”, like Eleanor Williams.As a result, police in Cumbria did not know the true scale of sexual exploitation in the town, a judge has been told. Continue reading...

Decision comes after Trevelyan family apologises for ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved African peopleA BBC journalist whose family made history for publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved African people and paying reparation has quit the broadcaster to campaign for reparative justice full-time.Laura Trevelyan and her family travelled to the Caribbean country of Grenada last month to publicly apologise for their family’s role in slavery and announced £100,000 in reparations. Continue reading...

Sydney’s Observatory Hill is set to see a 165-year-old high temperature record tumble over the weekend

After playing with the Beach Boys, George Harrison and other mid-century stars, Gordon was convicted of killing his mother during a psychotic episode in 1983Jim Gordon, a session drummer in the 1960s and 70s who contributed to hits by the Beach Boys, Steely Dan and dozens more, has died aged 77.He died in a psychiatric prison in Vacaville, California. Gordon had been incarcerated since 1983, after he killed his mother during a psychotic episode. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and sentenced to 16 years to life, but never attended parole hearings and never left prison. Continue reading...

Deal is designed to counter rising threat from Beijing but analysts in China say it could push region closer to conflictWhen the UK, the US and Australia announced the details of their multibillion-dollar deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines on Monday, the reaction in China was both outrage and confusion.The allies were “walking further and further down the path of error and danger”, said Wang Wenbin, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, on Tuesday. The Chinese mission to the UN accused the three countries of fuelling an arms race. Continue reading...

Daniil Frolkin handed 5.5-year sentence in move widely seen as attempt to silence other servicemen

Retail company to vacate premises at the Myer Centre it opened in 1988 after talks broke down with landlord over new lease

One claimant from Ltyentye Apurte, 85km south-east of Alice Springs, lived with a blocked toilet and leaking shower for 269 days

The company, which provides credit to JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman shoppers, says 100,000 ID documents and 225,000 customer records stolen

Malcolm Turnbull has also questioned deal amid UK economy’s ‘existential problems’

Xiomara Castro’s move would leave Taiwan with formal diplomatic relations with only 13 countriesThe Honduras president, Xiomara Castro, has said she has instructed her foreign minister to establish official relations with China, a move that would end its ties with Taiwan and further isolate the island on the world stage.The Central American country’s switch from Taipei to Beijing would leave Taiwan with formal diplomatic ties with only 13 countries. Continue reading...

Direct contact with cabinet and officials is a crucial remaining question for the referendum working group to finalise in Adelaide on Thursday

The soulful singer known for his 1978 hit What You Won’t Do for Love died after a long illness, according to a statement from his wifeBobby Caldwell, the influential singer and songwriter behind such R&B hits as Open Your Eyes and What You Won’t Do for Love, has died at the age of 71.The singer had endured a long illness, according to a statement posted by his wife, Mary Caldwell. “Bobby passed away here at home. I held him tight in my arms as he left us. I am forever heartbroken. Thanks to all of you for your many prayers over the years,” she wrote on his verified Twitter account. Continue reading...

Friends and family joined by dignitaries and and public to honour ‘fun, intelligent angel’Hundreds of mourners have gathered to pay tribute to the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, who was described in a moving funeral service as a “true one-off, unique and truly unforgettable”.The 16-year-old was found with fatal stab wounds in a park in the village of Culcheth, near Warrington, on 11 February. A boy and a girl, both 15, have been charged with her murder and are due to go on trial in July. Continue reading...

Boys then aged 15 and 16 charged with murdering 15-year-old outside school in HuddersfieldKhayri Mclean, a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed outside his school in Huddersfield, was killed in a “planned attack” by two teenagers wearing balaclavas, a court has heard.The boys, aged 15 and 16 at the time of the killing, are charged with murdering Khayri on 21 September last year, after lying in wait for him outside North Huddersfield Trust school, in West Yorkshire, the prosecution said. Continue reading...

Residents’ association claims Tower Hamlets officials and councillors knew about overcrowding at Maddocks HousePressure is growing for an independent investigation into the role of the London borough of Tower Hamlets before a fatal fire in an overcrowded flat as it was claimed 10 officials and councillors knew about problems.The Tarling West estate residents’ association published excerpts from correspondence from officials at the council dating back to last summer that appear to show they knew the two-bedroom flat in Maddocks House was overcrowded before fire broke out on 5 March, claiming the life of Mizanur Rahman. Continue reading...

Counter-terror police question man over stabbing of woman said to have been working at British spy agencyA US defence official working at GCHQ was stabbed last week in a car park in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, a couple of miles from the British spy agency’s distinctive doughnut-shaped headquarters.The victim, a woman, survived the incident which took place outside a leisure centre in the evening. A 29-year-old man from the town was arrested, initially on suspicion of attempted murder, and then on suspected terror offences. Continue reading...

Swedish prime minister also said he hopes Sweden’s accession will be ratified by Ankara after May electionsFinland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said he expects his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to confirm that Turkey is endorsing the Nordic country’s Nato membership application when the two meet in Ankara later this week.“We knew that when Turkish President Erdoğan on his part has decided to ratify Finland’s Nato membership, he wants to meet and fulfil his promise, president to president,” Niinistö told Reuters on Wednesday. Continue reading...

BBC journalists asked to avoid term ‘lockdown’ in reporting at the start of the pandemic, leaked messages showFormer BBC staffers have expressed concerns about the leaked WhatsApp and email messages suggesting the corporation bowed to pressure from No 10 to avoid using the word “lockdown” at the start of the pandemic and to turn up criticism of Labour.Rob Burley, a former senior editor in charge of political programmes, described the messages as “very troubling” while veteran BBC journalist John Simpson stressed that it was “not our job to do Downing Street’s bidding”. Continue reading...

About 40-50% of trains expected to run overall on Thursday with wide regional variationsTrain services around Britain will be severely disrupted again as RMT members at 14 train operators stage the first of four planned 24-hour strikes.Passengers have been urged to check before travel on Thursday and are being told to only travel by rail if absolutely necessary, with most affected operators ending remaining services by early evening. Continue reading...

Star James Martin will bring Oscar statuette to his Belfast drama group among programme of eventsAfter storming the Oscars the makers of An Irish Goodbye are preparing for what promises to be a rapturous Irish homecoming.Ross White and Tom Berkeley, who wrote and directed the film, plan to ride its success with a cinema tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland involving gala screenings and events with the cast and crew. Continue reading...

ONS reveals 16% of white people in England and Wales live in social housing, but 44% of black peopleBlack Britons are almost three times as likely as their white counterparts to live in social housing, new census data shows, while people of mixed race backgrounds were 1.6 times more likely.The data showed that life outcomes varied considerably between ethnic groups in England and Wales in education and employment, health, disability, home ownership and overcrowding. Continue reading...

High court move follows violent clashes between police and supporters outside former PM’s house in LahoreA court in Pakistan has ordered police to suspend an operation to arrest Imran Khan, after violent clashes between the former prime minister’s supporters and law enforcement outside his house.The vicinity of Khan’s residence became a battleground on Tuesday, when police arrived after a lower court in Islamabad issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for not appearing before it despite several summonses. Continue reading...

Figures close to Kean said the Liberal treasurer, a high-profile moderate, has floated the idea

Scores of trees destroyed in a few hours on Tuesday night despite petition to save them signed by 16,000 peopleMore than 100 mature trees have been cut down in the centre of Plymouth in a move campaigners said was reminiscent of the needless felling of thousands of trees in Sheffield.Despite widespread opposition from local people, the Conservative council in the Devon city cordoned off the trees with metal fencing, sent in security guards and in the cover of darkness on Tuesday night, destroyed more than 100 with chainsaws over a few hours. Continue reading...

Home Office is recruiting them for national assessment board, taking decision away from local authoritiesThe professional body for social workers has urged its members not to work with the Home Office to assess the ages of asylum seekers, saying that political pressures could undermine their professional judgment.The Home Office is recruiting social workers to join the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), which was set up under the Nationality and Borders Act to take responsibility for determining the age of asylum seekers away from local authorities. Continue reading...

Providence Equity Partners will pay 108p for each share – worth 610p before Covid sent sales plummetingThe events organiser Hyve Group has become the latest UK company to be sold to a private equity firm, sending its shares sharply higher.In a joint statement, the US firm Providence Equity Partners said it had agreed a buyout deal paying 108p in cash for each Hyve share – valuing the international conference organiser at £481m. Hyve had previously rejected two offers worth 101p and 105p a share from Providence. Continue reading...

Mother of university cook Claudia Lawrence felt ‘untold heartache’ over letters threatening £1,000 finesThe BBC has said it is “very sorry” for the distress caused to the mother of missing university cook Claudia Lawrence after letters about licence fee payments were sent to her daughter’s property.The broadcaster plans to apologise directly to Joan Lawrence after she told the Sun the letters, which she said had threatened up to £1,000 in fines, were causing her “untold heartache”. Continue reading...

Ben Wallace urges respect for international airspace as presumption grows incident was one-off blunder by Russian pilot

Fridge-sized self-drive robots from logistics firm Starship Technologies will ‘walk’ to customer homes in Sale and wait outside for drop-offAutonomous delivery robots will hit the streets of Greater Manchester this week as the Co-op partners with the self-driving logistics company Starship Technologies to bring its six-wheeled bots to a seventh British city.Five years after making their first UK delivery in Milton Keynes, Starship has expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of households across the country, offering services in cities including Cambridge, Leeds and Northampton. Continue reading...

British stance edges closer to the US, but many MPs want government to go further and designate China as a threat

Newly-added words include koha – a gift or offering – and kōrero, meaning a conversation or chatNew Zealanders will now see the common and casual te reo Māori greeting Kia ora e hoa! – meaning “hi mate” – in their Oxford English Dictionaries, as the institution moves to recognise the “profound and lasting impact” the Indigenous tongue has had on New Zealand’s language.E hoa, or friend, is one of 47 New Zealand English words or expressions added to the dictionary in its latest update – most of them in te reo Māori, which is an official language of New Zealand. The OED describes itself as the definitive record of the English language. Continue reading...

Mary McCoy, 85, lived briefly in a tent as a child before breaking into radio in 1951 and eventually sharing a stage with Elvis PresleyShe spent part of her childhood growing up in a tent without electricity or running water, became a voice on the radio at the age of 12 and once shared a stage with the king of rock’n’roll.Now Mary McCoy’s remarkable life and career have taken another turn. Guinness World Records announced on Tuesday that it had recently verified McCoy as the globe’s longest-serving female radio presenter after nearly 72 years on the airwaves. Continue reading...

Controversial pilot project in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province, has twelfth-graders at 10 high schools starting classes in the darkEarly every morning in a city in Indonesia’s far east, sleepy teenagers can be seen trudging through the streets on their way to school.The students are taking part in a controversial experiment to get the day off to a much earlier start. Continue reading...

It is the second time in recent weeks that police have been dispatched to serve an arrest warrant to the former prime ministerPakistan riot police have used water cannon and teargas to push back supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan who gathered outside his house to prevent officers from arresting him.Khan was ousted from office by a no confidence vote last year, and has been snarled in a series of legal cases as he campaigns for early elections and his return to office. Continue reading...

Energy regulators issue draft default market offer, which set cap for this year’s increases

People in Malawi and Mozambique picking up the pieces after fierce storm swept through at the weekendThe death toll from Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and Mozambique has risen past 200 on Tuesday, after the record-breaking storm triggered floods and landslips.Rescue workers warned that more victims were likely as they scoured destroyed neighbourhoods for survivors even as hopes dwindled. Continue reading...

News of the Grammy award-winner’s performance comes weeks after organisers apologised again for how wild weather and traffic were handled last year

Russia’s and China’s ‘signalling’ to US aircraft in international airspace is nothing new, but downing a craft is a worrying developmentOn any given day around Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Russian and Nato aircraft and naval vessels, manned and unmanned, buzz around in close proximity, a constant recipe for a superpower crisis along the edges of a war.The stakes are raised by the fact that both sides have thousands of nuclear warheads as a weapon of last resort, and the risks are raised considerably by reckless behaviour. Continue reading...

College football, Mexican cola and muffins – UK prime minister has plenty to talk about in private hour at AukusIt is common for British and American leaders to try to show the “special relationship” between their two countries extends to them personally.When Rishi Sunak landed in San Diego for a flash visit to see Joe Biden, the world’s media were spared any such attempts verging on the grandiose. Continue reading...

Sister company to firm that refurbished Grenfell among builders that failed to comply with deadlineMichael Gove has given 11 housebuilders – including one affiliated with the main contractor on Grenfell Tower – a last-minute reprieve after they failed to sign up to a government safety scheme by Monday’s deadline.The levelling up secretary revealed on Tuesday that 39 companies had signed up to the building safety contract, which details how they will replace any flammable material found in their mid-rise developments in England. The contract is a key part of the government’s response to the Grenfell fire, and will force housebuilders to spend a collective £2bn on remediation works. Continue reading...

Woman who once had a relationship with murder accused tells jury she helped police because she ‘couldn’t sleep’A key prosecution witness in the trial of the man accused of murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has told a jury she helped police because she “couldn’t sleep at night” and denied being motivated by money.The woman, who cannot be named, claims Thomas Cashman, the man accused of Olivia’s murder, visited her home immediately after the shooting. Continue reading...

Justyna Wydrzynska sentenced to community service after telling court she sent pills to victim of domestic violenceA court in Poland has convicted an activist for helping a pregnant woman access abortion pills, sentencing her to eight months of community service in a landmark case over abortion rights in the predominantly Catholic country.“I do not feel that I am facing the court alone,” said Justyna Wydrzynska at the hearing on Tuesday. “Behind me are my friends and hundreds of women I have not had the luck to meet yet.” Continue reading...

Russian fighter jet collides with US drone over Black Sea; one person killed and three injured in Kramatorsk shelling Continue reading...

Hospital boss refused to remove Letby from shift despite colleagues raising concerns about her presence and series of infant deathsLucy Letby allegedly tried to murder a baby after a hospital boss refused to remove her from frontline duties despite her colleagues raising concerns, a court has heard.A senior paediatrician told an executive that he and his team were “not happy” with Letby continuing to work on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital following a series of infant deaths. Continue reading...

The thrash metallers have secured their own supply of the high-value format, which is enjoying a 16th consecutive year of growth, ahead of the release of a new albumMetallica have bought their own factory to manufacture vinyl records, as annual vinyl unit sales outstrip CDs for the first time since 1987 in the US.The thrash metal band are the new owners of Furnace Record Pressing, a Virginia pressing plant that has made discs for Metallica for 15 years, as Billboard reports. The company’s founder and chief executive Eric Astor said: “Knowing our long-term future is secured while also being better able to take advantage of growth opportunities is really exciting.” Continue reading...