Prime minister hints at setting up new governing body after major firms pull support for Hockey Canada over handling of allegationsJustin Trudeau has warned Canada’s ice hockey governing body that it has “lost the confidence” of Canadians and could be easily replaced by a new organization, amid growing outcry about its handling of a string of sexual assault allegations.The prime minister’s comments come as a wave of major companies publicly pulled support for the embattled organization on Thursday. Continue reading...

Dispute between rival gangs lead to fatal shooting of lawmaker and his father in southern state of GuerreroA conflict between two rival gangs in the violence-plagued southwestern state of Guerrero has left 20 dead, including a local mayor, and two more wounded.The Guerrero state security council said gunmen burst into the town hall in the village of San Miguel Totolapan on Wednesday and opened fire on a meeting the mayor was holding with other officials. Continue reading...

Nika Shahkarami, 16, disappeared on her way to anti-hijab protests sparked by death of Mahsa AminiThe mother of an Iranian teenager who died after joining protests over Mahsa Amini’s death has accused the authorities of murdering her daughter and pressuring her into saying that her death was a suicide, caused by jumping from the roof of a building.In a video sent on Thursday to Radio Farda, a US-funded media outlet, Nasrin Shahkarami said she was under pressure to give a false statement about the death of 16-year-old Nika, who went missing on 20 September after leaving to join an anti-hijab protest in Tehran. Continue reading...

Energy companies urged to prioritise at-risk consumers, including those on dialysis, as National Grid warns of rolling blackoutsRolling power cuts enforced this winter if gas supplies run extremely low could endanger thousands of people who use life-saving machines at home, health leaders have warned.They spoke out after National Grid warned on Thursday that households could experience a series of three-hour electricity outages this winter to manage extreme gas shortages, for example if Vladimir Putin shuts off supplies from Russia and cold weather sends demand soaring. Continue reading...

European unity ‘is our north star’ says Department of State official, as protocol standoff appears to easeA senior adviser in the Biden administration has urged the UK not to cause more “flare ups” over Northern Ireland as Brexit talks reopen in London.In an unusually blunt intervention for a policy adviser, the US Department of State counsellor Derek Chollet said the row over the Northern Ireland protocol needed to be resolved. Continue reading...

Toy fox terrier from South Carolina who was crowned oldest dog by Guinness World Records died of natural causes, owners sayPebbles, the world’s oldest dog, has died.The 22-year old toy fox terrier from South Carolina died on Monday of natural causes, the dog’s owners said, via Instagram. Continue reading...

This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story hereTwo people have been killed after an alleged Russian missile attack hit Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Thursday morning.Regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said one woman was confirmed to have died in the attack while another person died in an ambulance. Continue reading...

Sara Arfaoui told to branch out from ‘Instagrammable spots’ after saying city’s food was ‘horrible’A Manchester City footballer’s wife has been told to get out more and to stop choosing restaurants on the basis of their Instagram appeal, after claiming food in her new northern English home town was “horrible” and “all frozen”.Sara Arfaoui, an Italian model who married the Man City captain, İlkay Gündoğan, earlier this year, said in an Instagram Q&A that she had “tried so bad to find a good restaurant” but that Mancunian eateries were focused on “making money with drinks and shot[s] like a nightclub” instead of providing quality food. Continue reading...

Famous figures including Elton John accuse Associated Newspapers of ‘gross breaches of privacy’Doreen Lawrence and Prince Harry are among a list of famous figures launching legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail over the alleged misuse of their private information, including an accusation relating to the placing of listening devices in private homes.Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost have also issued claims. Their lawyers issued a statement claiming they have “compelling and highly distressing evidence” they have been the “victims of abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy” by Associated Newspapers.The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people’s cars and homes.

Opposition activist who has spoken out against war in Ukraine faces 20 years in prison if convicted

This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest political coverage hereIn his interview with LBC Jake Berry, the Tory chairman, was asked if he was channelling When Harry Met Sally when he described Liz Truss as the “Yes, yes, yes prime minister” in his speech to the conference yesterday. (Robert Hutton is very funny about this, and much else, in his sketch for the Critic.) Berry said he was referring to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister when he delivered that line.In the same interview, Berry revealed that his joke-making has not improved since yesterday. Talking about the conference in general, Berry said:I think colleagues saw yesterday that when the going gets tough, the Truss gets going.I do think my language was a bit clumsy in that regard and I regret it.The point I was making ... is that the government needs to go for growth to ensure that it can grow the economy and Britain can get a pay rise. You don’t have to tell me how hard people graft in this economy. I know how hard people work.We’ve got to wait until those figures are available … You simply cannot make a decision on figures you do not currently have. Continue reading...

ONS data comes as NHS England figures show rise in hospital admissions of people with coronavirusMore than 1 million people in the UK have long Covid at least one year after they were first infected, new figures reveal.The data, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday, comes as other figures suggest the number of Covid patients admitted to hospital in England is continuing to rise amid a new wave of the virus. Continue reading...

West Oxfordshire council says setup at Diddly Squat farm is ‘visually intrusive and harmful’Jeremy Clarkson has been ordered to shut down his restaurant and cafe less than three months after saying he had found a planning loophole that would allow them to open.The broadcaster is appealing against the enforcement notice served on his Oxfordshire farm, Diddly Squat, where he has been involved in a long-running planning dispute with the council. Continue reading...

Ailing Swiss bank’s share price has collapsed after being hit by series of crisesCredit Suisse, the investment bank whose shares plummeted to record lows this week over fears it could be on the brink of collapse, is selling the five-star Savoy hotel in the centre of Zurich for as much as 400m Swiss francs (£361m).The bank, whose stock has fallen by more than 40% in the past six months, said on Thursday it had put the 184-year-old hotel on Paradeplatz in the heart of the city’s financial district on the market as part of a regular review of its global real estate assets. Continue reading...

Network Rail tells passengers to travel only ‘if absolutely necessary’Only about 20% of normal train services will run on Saturday as another strike by railway workers brings disruption to lines across Great Britain.Network Rail urged passengers to “only travel by train if absolutely necessary”, with about half of the network closed all day and those trains running only operating between 7.30am and 6.30pm. Continue reading...

Missile strike on Zaporizhzhia residential buildings; Putin appears to admit severe losses in Ukraine; IAEA chief heads to Kyiv

Former judge appointed to investigate claims prominent dance schools have rigged competitionsThe ostensibly quaint world of Irish dancing has been rocked by allegations of competition fixing and cheating, with some parents and teachers saying there is a code of omertà akin to The Godfather and The Sopranos.The Irish Dancing Commission, a governing body known in Irish as An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), has appointed a former judge to investigate claims that prominent dance schools and teachers have rigged competitions, it emerged this week. Continue reading...

Analysis: The opportunity to be a deal-maker in a wartime era is not lost on Liz TrussIt was the day before the Queen’s funeral that Ireland finally got the signal it was waiting for – Liz Truss was in the market for a deal over the Northern Ireland protocol.As is often the case, it was not so much what Truss said but what she did not say, said one source, that made it clear the UK was ready to end its 20-month standoff and resume talks with the EU. Continue reading...

38 people, most young children, killed by former police officer at preschool centre in north-east of countryThirty-eight people have been killed, most of them young children, in an unprecedented gun and knife attack at a preschool centre in north-east Thailand that has horrified the country.The attacker, a former police officer, opened fire as children were sleeping at the centre in Na Klang district in Nong Bua Lamphu province at about noon on Thursday, police and witnesses said. Continue reading...

Greek authorities say at least 15 others thought to be missing after shipwreck of dinghy that embarked from TurkeyThe bodies of 16 women and one man have been recovered from waters off the Greek island of Lesbos after a boat carrying people from countries in Africa sank in the early hours of Thursday morning.The Greek coastguard spokesperson Nikos Kokkalas said a large operation spanning a number of agencies was under way to find other passengers who had been on the dinghy that set sail from Turkey. Continue reading...

City’s electricity provider uses resilient lines in richer and whiter areas while poorer districts suffer from failure-prone equipmentIn late August, strong thunderstorms rolled through metro Detroit, knocking out power for six days at Marlene Harris-Bady’s Highland Park home. It was the second long outage that month in the largely low-income neighborhood, and Harris-Bady said she and her husband endure similar outages about five times annually.“It’s always a big mess and this has been going on for years,” Harris-Bady said, adding that DTE Energy, the private utility serving the area, always tells her the problem is with a nearby transformer. A few miles away, in a wealthier suburb, Harris-Bady’s sister lost power during the August storm for only a few hours, and rarely endures long outages. Continue reading...

In recordings played in court, Sharon Graham says to co-accused ‘I don’t want to be in this house any more’

Anthony Albanese meets with Solomons Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, who reiterates ‘no foreign military bases’ pledge. This blog is now closed

Fellow moderate Simon Birmingham calls on the party vice-president to resign as anger mounts over her comments at CPAC

Commission finds lack of formal support has had serious impact on health, education and economic outcomesCovid-19 has left tens of thousands of bereaved people in the UK facing serious consequences for their health, education and economic prospects because they missed out on formal support, a nationwide study of bereavement in the pandemic has found.The virus left about 750,000 more people bereaved than would usually have been the case and 40% of those who wanted formal help did not get it, according to the UK Commission on Bereavement. It examined the impact of the period of missed funerals, lockdowns that prevented families grieving together and remote schooling that may have left bereaved children without help from teachers. Continue reading...

State health minister says evidence given to inquiry that patients wait up to 36 hours to see a doctor are ‘rubbish’The New South Wales health minister has rejected criticism of the state’s healthcare system as “third-world” by doctors speaking at a parliamentary inquiry.Brad Hazzard dismissed some of the comments made by emergency medical experts on Wednesday. The doctors had been quizzed at an inquiry hearing about “war zone” conditions in public hospitals that remain under pandemic stress.Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Continue reading...

Higgins tells court she didn’t want allegation against Bruce Lehrmann to be a ‘media frenzy’ and wasn’t sure if making complaint would cost her her job

Authorities respond to growing outrage over death of Nika Shakrami, but continue violent crackdownIranian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the death of a teenage girl during the early days of protests in Tehran, who has become an icon for the anti-government movement.The popular uprising against Iran’s theocratic rulers was sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd detained for allegedly violating the country’s laws on clothing, and has largely been led by women. Continue reading...

PM pledges to get country ‘through the tempest’ but Tories leave Birmingham downbeat and dividedLiz Truss has attempted to unite her party around a common enemy of the “anti-growth coalition” of the unions, remainers and green campaigners after a turbulent Tory conference that left her party downbeat and divided, and her leadership in peril.After a fractious four-day gathering in Birmingham, the prime minister pledged to get the country “through the tempest” of the economic crisis this winter by pressing on with her economic plan for growth despite the “disruption” it risks unleashing. Continue reading...

More than half of the donations came from hedge fund bosses, venture capitalists and other City financiersLiz Truss was given more than £500,000 for her leadership campaign, with about half of it coming from donors linked to hedge fund bosses, venture capitalists and other City financiers.The prime minister, who has made a virtue of being pro-business and cutting taxes, saw a further round of donations declared on the register of MPs’ interests on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Australian teen drama spends two weeks in streaming platform’s Top 10, while fans drive billions of views on social media

NSW Taxi Council says ‘no excuse’ for drivers to charge off-meter, while industry under pressure with fees frozen since 2014

Archer tells Albanese government ‘it’s OK to change your mind’ as debate continues within ALP about future of Coalition tax package

Government had been calling Australia ‘the largest non-Nato contributor’ but that language has shifted as it becomes harder to measure

Prize worth £3.55m to be split between 433 winners who all chose multiples of nine for their numbersA “strange and unusual” lottery draw in the Philippines that led to 433 people winning with a combination of numbers that were all multiples of nine has prompted suspicion and calls for an investigation.A prize of 236m pesos (£3.55m) will be split between the winners, with each receiving about 545,000 pesos, subject to taxes, for picking the numbers 09, 45, 36, 27, 18 and 54 during the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) grand lotto draw on Saturday. Continue reading...

Home secretary reportedly planning ban on anyone who enters UK via irregular routes claiming refuge

Band founder tweeted in anger after PM walked on conference stage to hit 1993 single Moving On UpLiz Truss has become the target of the wrath of the founder of M People for walking on stage for her Tory party conference speech to the band’s 1993 single, Moving On Up.Michael Pickering, who co-wrote the song and founded the group, expressed anger on Twitter before the Truss speech was even finished, tweeting: “No permission given for that we’re very angry.” Continue reading...

Inquiry examines records going back to the 1940s and finds culture of victim-blaming, misogyny and protectionismThe Church of England has suffered from a culture of deference, inertia, misogyny, protectionism and victim-blaming, a three-year internal review of abuse cases has found.Almost 400 new cases involving actions by clergy, officials and volunteers against children and vulnerable adults were uncovered in the most extensive review of personnel records ever undertaken. Continue reading...

After week of hostile reactions to her policies, prime minister’s address contained nothing of substance

Aslef leader’s comment echoes new transport minister’s change in tone as driver dispute hits networkUnion leaders said that they hoped to “find a solution together” with the government to end the long-running dispute over pay, as a train drivers’ strike brought many services around Great Britain to a complete halt on Wednesday.Delegates who had remained at the Conservative party conference for Liz Truss’s speech were unable to travel by train with Avanti, CrossCountry, Chiltern and West Midlands, which were among the 12 operators left without drivers. Continue reading...

Prosecutors admit error after Jade McCrossen-Nethercott was accused of having rare sleep conditionA woman is suing the Crown Prosecution Service after it admitted her rape case should not have been dropped because of claims she had an episode of a rare sleep condition called sexsomnia.Jade McCrossen-Nethercott spent months investigating the condition and challenged the decision, forcing the CPS to apologise and admit it was wrong not to take her case to trial. Continue reading...

Thorburn, who resigned over links to church that condemns homosexuality, fears example will ‘reduce tolerance for others and diversity of thought’

Foreign secretary backs PM on economy and calls Conservatives trailing Labour in polls a ‘blip’

Assistant treasurer Stephen Jones says government ‘not walking away’ from previous policy but framing budget in ‘difficult’ circumstances

Exclusive: Tobias Ellwood said the party should focus on sticking to its sensible and fiscally responsible rootsTobias Ellwood has urged moderate Conservatives not to leave the party as he suggested Liz Truss has until Christmas to turn her troubled premiership around.The senior MP, who chairs parliament’s defence select committee but was stripped of the Tory whip in July, said the party should stick to its sensible and fiscally responsible roots. Continue reading...

About 60 wives, sons and daughters of slain or jailed IS combatants to be rescued from Roj camp, but some women face arrest upon return to Australia

Top economist believes internet access issues are standing in the way of decarbonisation and more efficient production

Start date for dialogue with the National Liberation Army will be announced after first week of NovemberColombia’s government and the nation’s largest remaining guerrilla group have announced that they will restart peace talks next month for the first time since 2018.After meeting in Caracas, representatives of the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army issued a statement saying a start date for the peace talks would be announced after the first week of November. The statement added that Norway, Venezuela and Cuba would be “guarantor states” in the talks, and that the participation of civil society groups would be “essential” for the peace talks to succeed. Continue reading...

Football authorities say flaw contributed to disaster in which 131 died after violence at the end of a matchDelays in unlocking stadium gates after violence broke out at the end of a football match contributed to a crowd crush in which at least 131 people died, Indonesia’s national football association has said.The Football Association of Indonesia said it has permanently banned the chief executive and security coordinator of the host team for failing to secure the field or promptly issue a command to unlock the gates. Continue reading...

Jolie alleges Pitt was abusive toward her and two of their children on a 2016 flight as legal battle over French winery escalatesAngelina Jolie has shared new details of the 2016 plane flight that led to the dissolution of her marriage to Brad Pitt, describing alleged abusive behavior.In a cross-complaint as part of an ongoing legal battle over the French winery the A-list former couple once co-owned, the actor filed papers in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Lawyers for the 47-year-old allege that negotiations for Jolie to sell her share of Chateau Miraval to Pitt broke down over his demand that she sign “a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children”. Continue reading...