World news | The Guardian

France’s president seeks to form a working majority despite Le Pen’s far-right party being main oppositionLeaders of France’s opposition parties all agree on the need to avoid political gridlock and must now learn to compromise, Emanuel Macron said on Wednesday, as he faces the biggest crisis of his career and unprecedented political deadlock after losing control of parliament.In his first comments since his centrist grouping fell more than 40 seats short of an absolute majority in parliamentary elections on Sunday, Macron said that agreements needed to be found across party lines and that he would seek over the next weeks to establish a working majority. Continue reading...

Maros Tancos, and Joanna Gomulska forced vulnerable people to work unpaid at car washA couple have been jailed for a total of 25 years after trafficking at least 29 vulnerable people to the UK and forcing them to work for free at a car wash and live in a property described as the “gate to hell”.Maros Tancos, and Joanna Gomulska, both 46, kept the victims as “prisoners” in squalor in the house in Bristol and subjected them to beatings and death threats, a court heard. Continue reading...

Gen Timo Kivinen says Nato applicant is prepared and motivated to defend against neighbour and would be ‘tough bite’ to chewFinland has prepared for decades for a Russian attack and would put up stiff resistance should one occur, its armed forces chief said.The Nordic country has built up a substantial arsenal. But aside from the military hardware, Gen Timo Kivinen said, a crucial factor is that Finns would be motivated to fight. Continue reading...

Office is overseeing surge of Russia-related sanctions to more than 1,400 after invasion of UkraineThe UK’s sanctions enforcement office has been trying to introduce the “most extraordinary package of sanctions ever implemented” in UK history with a group of just 70 staff, its director has admitted.The head of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), Giles Thomson, told MPs on the Treasury committee on Wednesday that his small team had been expected to oversee potential breaches of Russia-related sanctions despite the number of Moscow-related designations having surged from about 220 to more than 1,400 after the invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...

Landmark ruling allows Ted Jennings, 38, to use embryo to have child via a surrogateA 38-year-old widower has won a landmark legal case giving him the right to have a baby with a surrogate using the last remaining embryo created with his late wife.Ted Jennings and his wife, Fern-Marie Choya, had spent years trying to have children and had sought fertility treatment, but Choya died suddenly while pregnant with twin girls in 2019. The fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), rejected Jennings’s request to be able to use their last frozen embryo to start a family because Choya had not given written consent for posthumous surrogacy. Continue reading...

Derek Skipper says he ran out of time on paper but ‘it doesn’t matter two hoots about the result’A 92-year-old man is thought to have become the oldest person to sit a GCSE exam, after he completed a maths paper alongside a school hall full of 16-year-olds.Derek Skipper took the exam at Comberton village college near Cambridge after completing a free online course that involved him using YouTube for the first time. He needed to use a magnifying glass to read the paper due to his poor eyesight, and said he ran out of time before the end, but was still hopeful for a level 4 or 5 result. Continue reading...

Airservices Australia denies there is any shortage of controllers, despite struggle to fill shifts

Analysis: humanitarian appeals for Taliban-ruled country have had poor responses and there are sanctions complicationsAs Afghanistan reels from a powerful earthquake and starts to bury its more than 1,000 dead, the Taliban leadership in Kabul have already appealed to the international community to clear any barriers created by sanctions and come to their aid.“The government is working within its capabilities,” tweeted Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official. “We hope that the International Community & aid agencies will also help our people in this dire situation.” Continue reading...

Basil Watson’s sculpture at Waterloo station celebrates pioneers who arrived in Britain after second world warMembers of the Windrush generation have been “moved to tears” by a new national monument that pays tribute to their ambition, courage and contribution to Britain, the artist behind the sculpture has said.Basil Watson’s permanent monument to the Windrush pioneers who arrived in Britain after the second world war was unveiled at Waterloo station in London on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Home Office criticised as figures show 3,632 applicants were turned down and 314 returnedNine in every 10 people who were refused asylum by the Home Office two years ago were free to remain in the country, an analysis has found.The disclosure has fuelled claims that Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is failing to address fundamental problems in the asylum system such as removals. Continue reading...

Party of 48 pupils and their teachers waited on train for almost three hours en route to Royal Festival HallAlmost 50 primary school children who took part in a Windrush event in central London had to be evacuated from a train en route after being stuck in a carriage for almost three hours.The party of 48 year five pupils and their teachers from Hatcham Temple Grove free school in Nunhead, south-east London, almost missed the chance to perform at Royal Festival Hall because of the delay. Continue reading...

Warburton had whip suspended in April after allegations of sexual harassment and cocaine useDavid Warburton, the MP for Somerton and Frome, is facing an inquiry by the parliamentary standards commissioner.The Conservatives suspended the whip from Warburton in April after a series of allegations emerged concerning sexual harassment and cocaine use. Continue reading...

Moscow’s troops move on to city neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, after capturing all but chemical plant there

Launch of digital asset to track value of £1 comes despite contraction of cryptocurrency sectorTether, the controversial “stablecoin” that underpins more than $60bn of the crypto economy, is launching a British version to capitalise on the UK government’s desire to make Britain a global cryptocurrency hub.Like its US dollar counterpart, of which $67bn (£55bn) are actively traded on cryptocurrency markets, the launch will see a digital asset built on the Ethereum blockchain, with its value set at £1. Continue reading...

Remains thought to be more than 1,200 years old shed light on region’s transition from Christianity to Islam, say officialsIsraeli archaeologists have unveiled a rare ancient mosque in the country’s south that antiquities officials said shed light on the region’s transition from Christianity to Islam.The remains of the mosque, believed to be more than 1,200 years old, were discovered during works to build a new neighbourhood in the Bedouin city of Rahat, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement. Continue reading...

Video shared on social media shows an explosion at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery

Labour leader lambasts prime minister at PMQs for ‘blaming everyone else’ and not doing his job

UK Health Security Agency says evidence of limited community transmission of virus found in London wastewaterPublic health officials have declared a national incident after routine surveillance of wastewater in north and east London found evidence of community transmission of poliovirus for the first time.The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said waste from the Beckton sewage treatment works in Newham tested positive for vaccine-derived poliovirus in February and that further positive samples had been detected since. Continue reading...

Tangshan loses national honorary status as police officials investigated over incident that shocked ChinaThe northern Chinese city of Tangshan has been stripped of a national honorary title as the fallout from the assault of four women at a restaurant earlier this month continues.The civilisation office of the Communist party of China’s central committee announced on Wednesday it had decided to remove Tangshan from the list of “national civilised cities” – the highest recognition for a Chinese city. Continue reading...

Police investigating cause of death of Britons Nicholas and Hilary Smith, 81 and 79, at bungalow in TipperaryPolice in Ireland are investigating the cause of death of two British pensioners whose bodies lay undiscovered in their rural bungalow for an estimated 18 months until they were found this week.The couple, named locally as Nicholas Smith, 81, and his wife, Hilary Smith, 79, lived in a remote townland called Rossane, about three miles from Cloneen village in County Tipperary. Continue reading...

Police and crime commissioner ‘disappointed’ as child sexual abuse inquiry ‘fails to identify individual accountability’A long £6m investigation into multiple police failings during the Rotherham grooming scandal “lets down victims and survivors” by failing to identify any individual accountability, a police and crime commissioner has said.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Wednesday published what it described as its overarching report from Operation Linden, the name given to a series of investigations it carried out into how South Yorkshire police responded to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation between 1997 and 2013. Continue reading...

One of country’s oldest-running organisations turns factory into accommodation for refugees

Opposition denies claims of running a ‘low-level scare campaign’ on Perrottet government’s proposed land tax implementation

National Education Union writes to education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, calling for ‘inflation-plus’ pay rise

Singer says she hadn’t listened to her song ‘for a really long time’ before it raced up the charts thanks to its inclusion in Stranger ThingsKate Bush has discussed the remarkable resurgent success of her 1985 song Running Up That Hill in her first interview since the song’s return to the charts.Speaking to Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Bush said the situation was “just extraordinary … quite shocking really, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world’s gone mad.” Continue reading...

Hough Pharma, which supplies home tests to Coles and Woolworths, allegedly failed to provide reports or appropriate customer support

Civil trial jurors rule in favor of Judy Huth who accused comedian of forcing her to perform a sex act in 1975 when she was 16Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, jurors determined on Tuesday after a nearly month-long civil trial.Jurors in Los Angeles county ruled in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, awarding her $500,000 in a legal defeat for the once-beloved comedian and star of The Cosby Show. Continue reading...

Vsevolod Chentsov says move would show Moscow it can no longer claim sphere of influence over neighbour

Avi Yemini wants Telstra to provide information on 26 IP addresses as part of defamation case against anonymous pro-Labor account

State attorney general John Quigley says ‘I am truly sorry’ over murder of baby Charlie, who was killed after police left him at crime scene

Lawyers say new offence, introduced after four police officers were filmed dying, may have unintended negative consequences

Aemo says it ‘wants to understand comprehensively the lessons learned’, with trading to resume at 4am on Thursday

Exclusive: Investment NSW chief executive did not have ‘conflict of interest’, agency says after former deputy premier’s appointment to $500,000-a-year role

Green light comes after a string of controversies over money laundering, and 18 months after Barangaroo opened its bars and restaurants

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereReuters reports the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, has said at an economic conference in Qatar that his country is committed to joining Nato, but must solve its territorial problems with Russia first.Georgia is sandwiched between Russia in the north, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to its south. The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are internationally recognised as part of Georgia’s territory, although a handful of states, including Russia, officially recognise them. Continue reading...

Comedian says he was asked to explain context of gag to investigating officers, and will keep it in his showThe comedian Joe Lycett has said he was investigated by the police after an audience member made a complaint about a joke in one of his shows.In a post on Instagram, he revealed that he was asked to explain the context of the gag and that the authorities have now closed the case. Continue reading...

Hamilton Mourão’s claim sparked anger from Indigenous communities who believe organised crime was involvedBrazil’s vice-president has claimed that British journalist Dom Phillips was “collateral damage” in an attack on his travelling partner, the Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, as grisly details emerged about the killing of the two men in early June.One of the three men in custody for the killings said he and his accomplices tried to burn the bodies after shooting them dead at the edge of a river in western Brazil. Continue reading...

At least five MPs defy Keir Starmer’s orders and tweet pictures of themselves with RMT strikersKeir Starmer is expected to discipline at least five Labour frontbenchers who defied his orders and appeared on RMT picket lines on Tuesday in solidarity with striking railworkers.On the first of three days of industrial action, the Labour leader had instructed his team not to appear alongside striking workers, in order to show “leadership”, amid fears of Labour being portrayed by the Tories as responsible for the RMT’s walkout. Continue reading...

Officer involved in 2015 Kirkcaldy fatal arrest dismisses relative’s recollection as ‘absolute nonsense’A former police officer involved in the fatal arrest of Sheku Bayoh has vehemently denied that he told his own grandfather he was “a total racist and hated all blacks”.Alan Paton, who has since retired from the force on mental health grounds, was one of the first officers to arrive after multiple calls were received from the public about a man brandishing a knife and behaving erratically early on a Sunday morning in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in May 2015. Continue reading...

Calls grow for greater measures against wave of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in countries from Spain to DenmarkMultiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections, as experts warn that with almost all restrictions lifted and booster take-up often low, cases could spiral throughout the summer leading to more deaths.According to the Our World in Data scientific aggregator, the rolling seven-day average of confirmed new cases per million inhabitants is on the rise in countries including Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark. Continue reading...

President seeking consensus with groups including far right after failing to control Assemblée NationaleEmmanuel Macron has met leaders of opposition groups including the far right’s Marine Le Pen to sound out his chances of negotiating a parliamentary majority.The French president, whose centre-right alliance fell 44 seats short of controlling the Assemblée Nationale, was said to be exploring his “room for manoeuvre” after losing control of the lower house in Sunday’s legislative elections. Continue reading...

Cleveland police blame ‘genuine human error’ in release papers that brought Brian Temple months of threats and abuseA man who was arrested for stealing Greggs sausage rolls killed himself after being mistakenly described by police as a paedophile, an inquest has heard.Brian Temple, 34, from Redcar killed himself on New Year’s Eve in 2017 almost seven months after the alleged theft of a packet of Greggs snacks, Teesside coroner’s court was told, according to TeessideLive.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...

The victims, a man and woman, are the latest in a string of several violent incidents in Quintana Roo stateTwo Canadians have been found dead of knife wounds in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, the state prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.Prosecutors in Quintana Roo state, also home to resorts like Cancún and Tulum, said the man and the woman were found dead Monday at a hotel or condominium in the troubled resort, and a third person was reported injured. Continue reading...

Burton in Lonsdale resident Ian Macdonald and German student Admarsu Birhan have been namedTributes have been paid to a pilot and a teenage German exchange student who died when a helicopter crashed into a North Yorkshire field.Police confirmed Ian Macdonald, 66, died in the crash near his home in the village of Burton in Lonsdale shortly before midday on Monday. Continue reading...

Jabs will be offered to some men at higher risk of exposure, even if not a confirmed contact of a caseVaccines will be offered more widely to people at higher risk of getting monkeypox, in an attempt to help control the unprecedented outbreak in the UK.Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reveals that up to 20 June there were 793 laboratory confirmed cases in the UK, up from 574 on 16 June – a 38% rise in just four days. Continue reading...

Pensions triple lock likely to be ‘significantly higher’ but PM’s spokesman says similar public sector rise would be inflationary

Newspaper accused of ‘disseminating false information’ about Russia’s so-called special military operation

RMT union told formal consultations on modernisation plans to begin on 1 July to save over £100m annuallyNetwork Rail will start the formal process to lay off up to 1,800 staff at the end of the month, it has told the RMT, as the first day of the biggest rail strikes in 30 years halted most train services and forced travellers on to congested roads.Talks were expected to restart on Wednesday to find a settlement to a dispute that involved 40,000 rail staff from Network Rail and 13 train operators walking out for 24 hours on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Move is intended to help airlines run reduced summer schedules, while easyJet plans to cut 11,000 flightsThe government has announced an “amnesty” on airport slot rules, making it easier for struggling airlines to plan schedules with fewer flights, as fresh strikes at easyJet threaten to add to a summer of disruption for passengers.Airlines normally have to use allocated takeoff and landing slots at the busiest airports, such as London Heathrow and Gatwick, at least 70% of the time or risk forfeiting a valuable asset. Continue reading...