Irish research shows infants were slightly less likely to speak, point or wave at 12 months but were more likely to crawlBabies born during the first lockdown met fewer developmental milestones aged one compared with those born before the pandemic – although they may have been faster to crawl, data suggests.About 600,000 babies were born in Britain, and a further 60,000 in Ireland, during 2020 – when Covid restrictions and mask wearing put a stop to many social activities, including toddler rhyme-times, antenatal group outings and cuddles with grandparents. Since then, parents and psychologists have pondered the impact of such enforced isolation on babies’ social development. Continue reading...

Tourism Australia hopes cartoon mascot, voiced by actor Rose Byrne, will entice international travellers

Dance group leads with seven nominations, with Flume, the Kid Laroi, Baker Boy and Vance Joy also winning multiple nods

Rhinoceros-size Minnesota native wins big in California and will compete once more before being retired to studGrowers from across the country descended on the California coast carrying with them some of the world’s most gargantuan pumpkins.The giant pumpkin weigh-off, held annually ahead of Half Moon Bay’s pumpkin festival just south of San Francisco, is considered by competitors to be a Super Bowl of sorts in the unique sport, and the behemoths entered this year – some weighing as much as an average rhinoceros – did not disappoint. Continue reading...

Culture minister says UK institution ‘should learn from what has happened’ as Smithsonian returns 29 Benin artefactsThe culture minister of Nigeria has urged the British Museum to follow the example of the Smithsonian Institution, which on Tuesday returned ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria at a celebratory event in Washington.Lai Mohammed praised the move by the US National Museum of African Art, which follows a recent restitution agreement with Germany that included the handover of two Benin bronzes. Last year, Mohammed’s ministry formally requested the return of Benin artefacts from the British Museum in London. Continue reading...

Leaders warn of ‘severe consequences’; Ukrainian president accuses Russia of trying ‘to directly draw Belarus into this war’

Ex-Brexit minister’s comments suggest the European court of justice remains divisive among ToriesDavid Frost has said Liz Truss must not surrender to the EU by giving the European court of justice a role in trade disputes in Northern Ireland.On Tuesday, the former Brexit minister told the House of Lords European relations committee: “The court of justice cannot have a jurisdictional or arbitrational role in the future arrangement. I can’t see how they will be stable while that remained the case. I think better if that was acknowledged sooner rather than later.” Continue reading...

Advertising promoting government policies in run-up to local elections in May described as party propaganda by LabourA major advertising drive promoting the government’s levelling up agenda broke advertising rules, a watchdog has concluded after complaints were made about the billboard and local newspaper campaign.The campaign preceded local elections this year and involved a significant number of placements on local newspaper websites, including the Grimsby Telegraph, the Derby Telegraph, the Birmingham Mail and the Leicester Mercury. Continue reading...

Mourners attend cremation ceremonies after policeman kills 36 people, 24 of them childrenHundreds of mourners and victims’ families have gathered to watch flames burn from rows of makeshift furnaces at cremation ceremonies for the young children and others who died in last week’s mass killings in Thailand’s rural northeast.Families bid their final goodbyes at a Buddhist temple a short distance from the Young Children’s Development Centre in the town of Uthai Sawan, where a former policeman, who was fired from his job earlier this year for using drugs, barged in and shot and stabbed children and their caregivers. Continue reading...

Barristers ended strike after 57% accepted 15% rise but many juniors say they cannot afford to stay in professionJunior criminal barristers have expressed despair at the vote to end their indefinite strike, calling it a “death warrant” for the profession which resulted from senior colleagues accepting the government’s offer.Barristers returned to work on Tuesday after 57% voted to accept a 15% increase in legal aid fees, which will also apply to the backlog of about 60,000 cases in the crown courts, despite originally demanding 25%. Continue reading...

Sandwich shop chain to increase pay by 5% for most cafe workers, with higher rates for baristasPret a Manger is investing £10m in raising pay, announcing its third rise in 13 months to a minimum of £10.30 an hour, as hospitality and retail businesses compete to attract workers during the busy run-up to Christmas.The sandwich shop chain, which has more than 400 outlets in the UK, said it was increasing pay by 5% or 50p an hour for most cafe workers from 1 December. Pay for skilled baristas, who are particularly in short supply, will rise from a minimum of £10.30 to £10.85 – an extra 5p. Continue reading...

Death toll from Monday’s strikes rises to 19 as Russian continues to attack Ukrainian cities with missiles; GCHQ boss says ‘No signs Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapon’The death toll from Monday’s Russian missile attacks on a swathe of Ukrainian cities has risen to 19 people, with over 100 wounded, according to figures from the Ukrainian state emergency services.Strikes continued on Tuesday. An attack on the Lviv region in western Ukraine on Tuesday left parts of the city without electricity. Governor Maksym Kozytskyi has said “At this moment, it is known about three explosions at two energy facilities in the Lviv region”. Mayor of the city, Andriy Sadovyi, appealed to residents to keep water supplies on hand ahead of expected service interruptions.The Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in the Vinnytsia region was struck on Tuesday morning. Regional head Serhiy Borzov said: “An attack was launched on the LTPP. Two Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.”There has been a lengthy air raid warning in place all morning in Kyiv, with governor Oleksiy Kuleba claiming that at least one rocket had been shot down.Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Dnipro, has claimed that air defence systems had shot down four missiles over the region. Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv, has said that “there are still missiles in the air” and that Ukraine’s air defences continue to work.The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin. Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.Fleming is expected to say in a rare public speech delivered later on Tuesday that Putin is making strategic errors due to unconstrained power. “Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machine spouted, it’s clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide,” Fleming will say. “With little effective internal challenge, Putin’s decision-making has proved flawed” Continue reading...

UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats

Department of Education figures show permanent vacancies were far higher than reported in June 2021

Chef says there is a need ‘now more than ever’ to lower income and benefits threshold parents must meetThe chef and food rights campaigner Jamie Oliver has said there is a need “now more than ever” for the number of children eligible for free school meals to be expanded.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Oliver said the benefits and income threshold that parents must meet for their children to be eligible for free school meals should be lowered. Continue reading...

Lowest-paying of big supermarkets says trial of temporary premiums ‘not delivering desired results’Asda is slashing 1,500 grocery delivery drivers’ hourly pay by more than 12% despite the cost of living crisis.The UK’s third largest supermarket chain is ending a £1.50-an-hour premium introduced in the summer to help attract and retain drivers delivering groceries to homes from some London stores, including Charlton, Wembley and Colindale, as well as outlets in Bristol and the south coast. Continue reading...

Downing Street’s chief mouser captured on camera chasing away rival from PM’s residenceThere are not just wolves at the door of 10 Downing Street these days.Larry the cat, who serves as chief mouser to the Cabinet Office, has been captured on camera chasing a fox from outside the prime minister’s residence. Continue reading...

Woman’s escape plan had previously been leaked to abuser, but Victorian anti-corruption body referred case back to police’s internal investigations

Insults caused woman to lose control while walking on roadway, she says, while another witness says public harassment is common

British intelligence viewed Flora Solomon as ‘inconsequential’ in 1951 but her evidence later ‘clinched’ case against PhilbyKim Philby could have been unmasked as a Soviet double agent more than a decade before his eventual defection had MI5 not missed an opportunity to question his close friend Flora Solomon, according to newly released intelligence files.Solomon, born in Russia to a wealthy family, was a former lover of Alexander Kerensky, the Russian leader deposed by Lenin. She told MI5 in 1962 that Philby had tried to recruit her as a Soviet spy in 1937-38. Continue reading...

In what would have been artist’s 90th year, first retrospective at Biesdorf Palace has been a surprise successSeven men wash the sweat off their toned bodies in a communal shower. Unless you squint and mistake a tightly gripped bar of soap for something else, their limbs are suspended in tantalising proximity but never quite touch.The German artist Jürgen Wittdorf’s 1963 linocut print, from a series titled Youth and Sport, may look like something out of a top-shelf graphic novel or the virile drawings of the gay liberation icon Tom of Finland. Continue reading...

Jim Chalmers says spiralling energy costs the most ‘problematic aspect of our inflation problem’ through to mid-2023

Activist group Market Forces says continued funding of coal, oil and gas is incompatible with net zero commitments

NSW and Victoria to ask federal water minister for exemptions to their commitments, while irrigators want focus on gains made

Government officials struggle to end demonstrations sparked by death in police custody of Kurdish woman

Steven Craig is accused of murdering Jacqueline Kirk, who died two decades after his attackA woman whose partner doused her with petrol and set her on fire died more than two decades after the attack partly as a result of the terrible scarring she suffered, a murder jury has been told.Steven Craig, 58, is accused of the murder of Jacqueline Kirk, who died in hospital in Bath 21 years after he set her alight in a car park in the Somerset seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. Continue reading...

Missile attacks on civilian targets mark an attempt to respond to Russian president’s wounded pride and criticism his invasion is failing

US streaming service behind The Crown and Stranger Things also pays record corporation tax of nearly £7mNetflix, the US streaming service with hits including The Crown and Stranger Things, has revealed its annual revenue from UK subscribers for the first time – £1.4bn in 2021 – after changing its accounting practices in a move that also resulted in a big increase in its corporation tax payment to nearly £7m.Netflix’s main UK business reported a 1,630% increase in revenues last year, up from just £79m in 2020, after abandoning the widely criticised practice of funnelling British income through other lower-tax European jurisdictions that is commonly utilised by Silicon Valley companies. Continue reading...

Former ATO employee facing 24 charges after raising concerns publicly about aggressive pursuit of debts in 2018

Black, working-class and mature students most at risk of being forced out of higher education by financial pressuresThe cost of living crisis is placing nearly 300,000 UK students in financial peril, with a disproportionate number of older, working-class or Black students likely to drop out, according to analysis by a university group.The MillionPlus group – an association of modern universities in England and Scotland educating more than a million students – said national governments and regulators including the Office for Students (OfS) and the Scottish Funding Council should take immediate action to alleviate the severe financial pressures facing students. Continue reading...

Guardian analysis of hundreds of documents also finds complaints of rodents, bed bugs, overcrowding and fire safety issuesRaw sewage leaking into a living room, rodents, bed bug and mite infestations, overcrowding and fire safety issues make up just some of the complaints levelled at rogue landlords in tribunal filings in the past year.The findings come after the Guardian analysed hundreds of documents from the first-tier property tribunal involving tenants renting house-shares of five or more people (or three or more in parts of London) sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities, known as houses of multiple occupation or HMOs.Raw sewage leaking from a toilet and seeping through the living room ceiling, which had to be collected in plastic containers.Multiple properties that had no fire detection system or smoke alarm; lacked an adequate central heating system; had infestations of rodents, bed bugs and pigeon mites, which were not adequately dealt with.A London landlord renting out a property through a company the tribunal found did not exist.A converted church rented to students was inadequately secured after a burglary and the burglar was later found to be living in the attic. At the same property, a fire took place when smoke alarms were not working. Continue reading...

Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a batIn August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way. Continue reading...

Blast early on Saturday causes road bridge to collapse and engulfs rail bridge in flames

Energy supplier’s deal to acquire rival’s 1.6m customers would cost taxpayers an estimated £4bn in lossesOctopus Energy is reportedly closing in on a takeover of its rival Bulb in a deal that will set the final bill to the taxpayer at an estimated £4bn.Ministers at the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have been informed that a sale of Bulb’s customer base of 1.6 million would be the most favourable outcome, according to Sky News. Continue reading...

Party will continue to boycott power sharing until action taken to ‘restore our place fully in UK’Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader, has vowed to perpetuate Northern Ireland’s political paralysis unless the UK government overhauls its Brexit deal with the EU.Donaldson told the DUP’s conference in Belfast on Saturday that he would not revive power sharing unless Downing Street met the party’s demands on the Northern Ireland protocol. Continue reading...

Emboldened by Edinburgh bin strikes, unions call for talks on pay rises, child benefits and rent controlsScottish trade union leaders have urged Nicola Sturgeon to spend hundreds of millions more on the cost of living crisis as nurses, teachers and midwives consider striking over their pay.The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the Poverty Alliance, an influential umbrella group, have asked the first minister to accept inflation-matching pay increases, a rise in child benefits to £40 a week and strict rent controls funded by new wealth taxes. Continue reading...

Officers responded to reports of a man with a knife in police station car park, Derbyshire constabulary saysA man with a knife has been shot dead by armed officers in a police station car park.Officers responded to reports of a man at Ascot Drive police station in Derby on Friday morning. Continue reading...

Chris Heaton-Harris warns he will call an election on 28 October if power sharing is not restoredThe British government has said it is looking to “move on” from the row with the EU over Northern Ireland and is aiming to “move quickly” to get a solution over the Brexit arrangements.After a joint meeting with Irish ministers in London, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said he was “very positive” of a settlement after the resumption of talks after an eight-month standoff. Continue reading...

Comments come as polls deliver sobering verdict on Scotland’s ruling party as it prepares for conferenceNicola Sturgeon has accused Liz Truss of doing “real and lasting damage to the fabric of British society” after crashing the UK economy, sinking the pound and threatening the poorest with further austerity.The prime minister’s brief tenure had been “utterly catastrophic”, Sturgeon told Good Morning Britain on Friday before the Scottish National party’s annual conference in Aberdeen this weekend. Continue reading...

Watchdog opens inquiry into five working and two former Civil Nuclear Constabulary officersA group of police officers are being investigated over alleged “discriminatory, derogatory or pornographic” messages shared in a WhatsApp group in the latest scandal of its kind.The police watchdog has launched the inquiry following referrals from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which is responsible for protecting civil nuclear sites in England and Scotland, as well as a force in the south-west of England. Continue reading...

No remains found after week on Saddleworth Moor as forensic scientists question evidence provided by amateur investigatorShortly before 5pm on Friday 30 September, forensic scientists in their white costumes and hi-vis-clad police officers were battling sleet and strong winds to climb Saddleworth Moor to a line of vehicles parked along a stretch of the A635, a winding road that cuts east to west through the Pennines.An officer from Greater Manchester police carrying a heavy-duty lamp strode towards a police van and shook his head at the worst weather he had ever experienced at a crime scene. “We just can’t do any more today in these conditions,” he shouted over the noise of gale. “The wind was lifting the forensic tents. I’ve never seen that before. They weigh a third of a tonne each.” Continue reading...

PM has clung on after a tumultuous start in No 10. We assess her chances of leading the Tories into the next electionLiz Truss’s premiership is in a precarious position, and there is frenzied speculation about whether she will be forced from office in a matter of months or fight on to lead the Conservatives into the next general election.While Tory MPs wargame how to slay or save her career, the prime minister is focused on preventing her radical new agenda being derailed by a fractured party. Continue reading...

Families tell of the moment they heard about gun and knife attack that killed 37 people, most of them childrenOn Friday morning, in the baking sun, grieving parents filed in a line to leave flowers outside the Uthai Sawan nursery school in northern Thailand. Women dressed in black and with heads bowed each placed a white rose on the entrance steps.A mother, standing at the side, clutched her son’s red blanket and his milk bottle, still half-full. Continue reading...

Stores stock up on hooded blankets, heated ponchos and microwavable slippers as heating costs soarThe onesie was a sales sensation a decade ago but now the all-in-one is making a high street comeback as this winter’s hottest trend is literally thermal fashion, a category that includes hooded blankets, heated ponchos and microwavable slippers.With Britons desperate to reduce their energy use by keeping their heating off for as long as possible or turning the temperature down, retailers have risen to the challenge with stores packed full of warm clothing and gadgets before the lucrative Christmas period. Continue reading...

Police say week-long search on Saddleworth Moor revealed no evidence of human remainsPolice have ended a search for the Moors murder victim Keith Bennett without finding any sign of human remains.Forensics officers undertook a week-long hunt for the boy’s remains after receiving information from an amateur investigator. Continue reading...

Calls for government to take action now to prevent further unnecessary deaths next summerMore than 2,800 more people aged 65 and over died in England during this summer’s heatwaves than would have otherwise, figures show, marking the highest excess death toll caused by heat in at least two decades.The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) recorded 43,755 non-Covid-related deaths of people in the 65-plus age group during this summer’s heatwaves in England. Continue reading...

Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in Ukrainian city, says regional governorRussia has targeted Zaporizhzhia with explosive-packed “kamikaze drones’’ for the first time as the death toll from a missile strike on an apartment building in the city rose to 11.Regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city. He said missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person. Continue reading...

Founder Julian Dunkerton says being ‘cool again’ with TikTok generation helped turn previous £37m loss into £18m profitSuperdry is in talks with its banks to renegotiate up to £70m debt, the fashion retailer revealed on Friday, but investors shrugged off concerns to send shares soaring more than 14% as founder Julian Dunkerton announced a return to profit.Dunkerton claimed Superdry “was cool again”, with strong demand from the TikTok generation for items such as parachute pants and Afghan coats, as he revealed pre tax profits of £18m, a bounce back from a loss of almost £37m a year before as sales rose almost 10% to £610m in the year to 30 April. Continue reading...

Based on results from random swabbing, ONS says 1.1 million people in country have virusCovid infection levels are continuing to rise in England, with more than 1.1 million people thought to have had the virus in the most recent week, data has revealed.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, based on swabs from randomly selected households, about one in 50 people in England – 2% of the population – had Covid in the week ending 24 September, an increase from one in 65 the week before. Continue reading...

French auction house tells of build-up to bidding war that led to an expert losing his job and a seller being left ‘traumatised’In the 41 years of wielding the gavel at his auction house a stone’s throw from the royal chateau at Fontainebleau, Jean-Pierre Osenat has never seen anything like it.“This is a crazy story,” he said. “Quite extraordinary.” Continue reading...