High rate of spoilt ballots also probable as poll shows 49% of voters do not feel represented by either candidateWith four days until Ireland's presidential election there are growing fears that a lacklustre campaign will prompt many people to spoil their vote or boycott the ballot.Opinion polls give Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing candidate, a wide lead over Heather Humphreys, who represents the ruling centre-right establishment. However, they also show frustration and disillusionment about their campaigns. Continue reading...

Harley Pearce, 21, who worked in farming and was described as a cherished son and devoted brother', died at scene in WitcombeThe son of the former England footballer Stuart Pearce has been named as the victim of a fatal tractor crash in the Cotswolds.Harley Pearce, 21, died at the scene of the collision on 16 October on the A417 at Old Birdlip Hill, in Witcombe, near Gloucester, Gloucestershire police said. Continue reading...

Protests have been banned and opposition figures sidelined as 83-year-old president ignores calls to step downThis is worth several more terms," the Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, joked while opening a bridge named after him in the country's commercial capital, Abidjan, in 2023.The appearance in recent years of several new bridges in west Africa's second most populous city has been hailed by the president's supporters as symbolic of an era of modernity and stable leadership under his watch. Continue reading...

Victorian premier insists city is safe and police have necessary powers after two officers hospitalised on Sunday

Collapse in construction activity causing alarm but mayor and Whitehall face pushback over extreme solutions'Sadiq Khan has known for a while that he has a problem with housebuilding in London. But last week a consultancy published figures about the scale of the problem, which prompted full-scale alarm in City Hall and Whitehall.The analysis from Molior showed that new housebuilding in the capital had collapsed. Only 40,000 homes are under construction - two-thirds the normal rate - and in the first three months of the year builders started work on just 3,248 private sector units. Continue reading...

Linden Kemkaran told fellow Kent councillors those who disagreed with decisions would have to suck it up'

Wave of Israeli airstrikes leaves nine-day truce teetering as residents recall previous dashed peace hopes

Rachael Maskell says a lot of clarity' needed over how Prince Andrew funded settlement of sexual abuse case

Driver lost control of bus in Saloa in Pernambuco state and cause of accident is under investigationA passenger bus in north-eastern Brazil has crashed into a sand embankment and flipped on its side, killing 15 people, local authorities have said.The bus was carrying about 30 passengers, police said on Saturday, but the number of injured, who were taken to nearby hospitals, was not immediately clear. The vehicle departed from the state of Bahia and crashed in Saloa, a city in the neighbouring state of Pernambuco. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Footage reveals Kent leader berating councillors amid rows over budgets and bullying claimsBitter divisions in Reform UK's flagship county council have been laid bare in a leaked video of a chaotic internal meeting where members were told to fucking suck it up" if they did not agree with decisions.Councillors can be seen complaining about backbiting" and being ignored by their leader, Linden Kemkaran, who tells them they will be screwed" and that Reform can forget about winning the general election if they don't balance Kent's budget. Continue reading...

Exclusive: firms run by five of the party's councils have used legal loophole to serve section 21 noticesLabour-run councils have used a legal loophole to issue almost 200 households with no-fault eviction notices since the party was elected on a promise to ban the practice, a Guardian investigation has found.Scrapping these orders, known as section 21 evictions, was one of Keir Starmer's main pledges before last July's general election but, more than a year later, they remain lawful. Continue reading...

One of the largest mussel exporters in Britain lose 150,000 after three lorries were prevented from entering the EUOne of Britain's largest mussel exporters has suffered a 150,000 loss, after three of its shipments to the EU were rejected in recent weeks by French customs.Family-run business Offshore Shellfish, based in Devon, has continued exporting blue mussels to its European customers since Brexit, despite the administrative burden and onerous paperwork requirements. Continue reading...

Remains of Eliyahu Churchill' Margalit, who was killed on 7 October 2023, identified after being passed to Red Cross by HamasThe body of a 75-year-old hostage handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross in Gaza late on Friday has been identified by Israel's military as Eliyahu Churchill" Margalit.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Margalit was killed at Nir Oz kibbutz on 7 October 2023 during Hamas's assault on southern Israel and his body taken into the Gaza Strip. His death was confirmed in December 2023. His daughter, Nili Margalit, was also kidnapped and returned as part of a deal in November 2023. Continue reading...

Club and Penguin bars are now chocolate flavour' after owner McVitie's cuts cocoa content amid soaring pricesIf you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit you can no longer join our Club or pick up a Penguin, as the lunchbox favourites have reduced the amount of cocoa in their recipe so much they are now only chocolate flavour".The two snacks, both made by McVitie's, changed their recipes earlier this year amid soaring cocoa prices - which have prompted manufacturers to try a number of different tactics to keep prices down. Continue reading...

Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchersMainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda, researchers in Germany have found, describing it as a shortcoming that had unwittingly helped the far right by legitimising their ideas and disseminating them more widely.The findings, published in the European Journal of Political Research, were based on an automated text analysis of 520,408 articles from six German newspapers over the span of more than two decades. Continue reading...

MP tells supporters he won't run for his seat of New England at next election and is free to now consider all options'

Deal comes after county in April agreed to pay $4bn to settle historical claims - largest such settlement in US historySix months after approving the largest sexual abuse settlement in US history, officials in Los Angeles announced the county tentatively agreed to pay another huge sum, nearly $1bn, to settle more than 400 additional claims against county employees.In April, Los Angeles county approved a historic $4bn settlement with about 11,000 claimants and allegations of sexual abuse in LA juvenile facilities that dated back decades. On Friday, the county said it had reached another major settlement for $828m, pending approval by the board of supervisors, the county governing body, and the county claims board. Continue reading...

In statement released by Buckingham Palace, Andrew says he will give up titles and honours

Salesforce CEO faced intensifying backlash after saying national guard will make California city saferMarc Benioff, the billionaire CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, apologized on Friday for saying he supported Donald Trump sending national guard troops to San Francisco.Benioff, who has been facing intensifying backlash in California, said in a post that after he listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials ... I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco". Continue reading...

Ex-Trump labor secretary Alex Acosta defends not taking case to trial in September testimony to House lawmakersAlex Acosta, the former US attorney for the southern district of Florida who negotiated a plea deal in 2008 with Jeffrey Epstein, testified before the House oversight committee last month that going to trial would have been a crapshoot" due to lack of cooperation from victims.In a transcript of the six-hour interview released on Friday, Acosta, who later served in the first Trump administration as labor secretary, described the evidentiary hurdles a federal prosecution of Esptein would have faced, and told why his office turned the case over to Florida state prosecutors, which resulted in the disgraced financier pleading guilty to charges of soliciting sex from a minor. Continue reading...

Ex-royal cherished his titles and status but Buckingham Palace faced risk of reputational spillover

It is not the party's first foray into the dystopian territory, with Trump having posted AI videos of his ownThe National Republican Senatorial Committee crossed into dystopian new territory for political campaigning on Friday after releasing an attack ad that features an artificially generated video of the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.The deepfake video, posted on Friday to the Senate Republicans' social media account, shows an AI-generated Schumer robotically repeating the phrase every day gets better for us" in reference to the ongoing government shutdown. A small disclaimer tucked in the corner acknowledges its artificial origins. Continue reading...

President says Venezuelan counterpart doesn't want to fuck around with the United States'Donald Trump used an expletive to threaten the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, on Friday, claiming that the leftist autocrat had offered major concessions to appease the US.The US president was speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday during a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Continue reading...

Budget chief ups ante in shutdown fight, announcing work pause in cities such as New York, San Francisco and BostonThe White House budget director, Russell Vought, said on Friday that the Trump administration will freeze another $11bn worth of infrastructure projects in Democratic states due to the ongoing government shutdown.Vought said on social media the US army corps of engineers would pause work on low priority" projects in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore. He said the projects could eventually be canceled. Continue reading...

Rachel Reeves understood to be eyeing cuts to Motability scheme as she tries to plug hole in country's financesRachel Reeves has said she can't leave welfare untouched" this parliament, with the Treasury understood to be considering axing up to 1bn in tax breaks for a scheme providing cars for disabled people.The chancellor set out her thinking on welfare before next month's budget in an interview, having previously said she would need to make cuts and raise taxes. Continue reading...

If signed into law, the bill proposed by far-right party would follow other European countries in banning face veilsPortugal's parliament has approved a bill banning face veils worn for gender or religious" reasons in public, in a move seen as targeting Muslim women who wear face coverings.The measure was proposed by the far-right Chega party and would prohibit coverings such as burqas (a full-body garment that covers a woman from head to foot) and niqabs (the full-face Islamic veil with space around the eyes) from being worn in most public places. Face veils would still be allowed in airplanes, diplomatic premises and places of worship. Continue reading...

Trump said US may need Tomahawk missiles for a future conflict after surprise phone call with Putin earlier in day

Diplomatic tensions escalate amid rows over planning hold-ups and collapse of spying trialTensions between Britain and China have escalated after Beijing criticised further delays to a planning decision on its proposed mega embassy" in London.China's ministry of foreign affairs expressed grave concern and strong dissatisfaction" after Steve Reed, the housing secretary, pushed back his final decision on the proposal until 10 December. Continue reading...

Buckingham Palace said to be at tipping point' over headlines about prince's links to Jeffrey Epstein and Chinese officialKing Charles is considering stripping Prince Andrew of his title of Duke of York after a string of allegations, the Guardian understands.Buckingham Palace has reportedly reached a tipping point" over headlines about Andrew's connections to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and to a senior Chinese Communist party official suspected to be at the heart of the recent collapsed China spy case. Continue reading...

Fans of Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv banned from match at Aston Villa next monthZarah Sultana, the former Labour MP who is now a member of the Independent Alliance in parliament, alongside Ayoub Khan and four others, has also defended the Maccabi ban on the grounds that Israeli teams should not be competing in international sport. She says:Next UEFA must ban all Israeli teams.We cannot have normalisation with genocide and apartheid.Apartheid South Africa was banned from the Olympics for 32 years.The same people who called Nelson Mandela a terrorist" now say we can't boycott apartheid Israel.There are two distinct issues. One is the safety aspect ... If the police in West Midlands find it challenging because they simply do not have the resources to ensure safety, then that's one aspect.The second aspect is a moral argument that Maccabi Tel Aviv should not even be playing in this international competition. Continue reading...

With 600,000 people attending, Hull Fair is the UK's biggest - and has a thrilling but overlooked musical subculture. We follow the blaring soundsystems to meet the DJs and MCs facing off in waltzer battlesThe smell of fried onions wafts across the pink glare of candy floss, as lights pop, smoke billows and songs play simultaneously at deafening volume: walking through Hull Fair is a sensory overload.Stretching across 16 acres and more than 300 attractions, it is one of the largest travelling fairs in Europe and will pull in around 600,000 people during a week-long run that ends on Sunday. However, despite the myriad thrills, including the UK's tallest fairground ride, there's one attraction that remains king: the waltzers. When this year's event was officially opened by the lord mayor, it was via a ceremonial bell ringing on one of these rides. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Proposals will bring democratic revolution' and transform post-Labour left' into formal political force, say organisersYour Party, the leftwing movement steered by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, has set out draft constitution plans including a leadership contest in the new year and new governing structures, the Guardian has learned.Organisers say the proposals will bring a democratic revolution" and begin transforming Britain's post-Labour left" into a formal political force, while drawing a line under months of public rifts. Continue reading...

Former cabinet secretary seen as favourite despite running risk of angering No 10 with China spy trial commentsMark Sedwill has emerged as the frontrunner to become the UK's ambassador to the US, according to senior government figures.The former cabinet secretary and national security adviser is seen by ministers as the likeliest choice for the top diplomatic posting in Washington. Continue reading...

FoI data shows 180,000 students and graduates weighed down by private debt amid cost of living crisisStudents have accrued nearly 500m in hidden debts" to their universities, including library fines, unpaid accommodation and support loans, according to figures that highlight the cost of living crisis on UK campuses.The figures from freedom of information requests sent to 148 UK universities showed that 180,000 students and graduates owe private debts totalling 486m to universities, averaging about 2,650 each. Continue reading...

Deal reportedly closed for $140m a year, on the heels of worldwide success of Apple-produced Brad Pitt film F1Apple has landed US broadcast rights to Formula One in a five-year deal that would help the tech giant bolster its streaming service with one of the country's fastest-growing sports, following the success of its Brad Pitt-starrer F1: The Movie.The two sides did not disclose the financial details of the deal on Friday. CNBC reported it was for $140m a year, much higher than the $90m the Walt Disney-owned ESPN was paying each season for F1, which it has broadcast since 2018. Continue reading...

Becky Francis says pupils condemned to retaking maths and English face blocks to progress' and system needs overhaulThe requirement that children who fail GCSE maths and English must repeatedly resit the exams is too inflexible and needs to be overhauled, according to Becky Francis, the head of the government's curriculum review.Francis said the full review, ordered by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, would be published in a few weeks" and supports changes expected in a forthcoming white paper to England's resits policy that requires pupils who fail to reach a grade 4 in maths and English to keep retaking them while in post-16 schooling. Continue reading...

Judges reject Home Office attempt to block judicial review of group's proscription under Terrorism ActA legal challenge to the ban on Palestine Action can go ahead next month after the court of appeal rejected the Home Office's attempt to block the case.In a blow to the government, on Friday, three judges, led by the lady chief justice, Sue Carr, upheld Mr Justice Chamberlain's decision to grant the Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori a judicial review of the group's proscription under the Terrorism Act. Continue reading...

After about 8,300 nautical miles Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne can't wait to share their tales of the high seas' when they land in Cairns, QueenslandSix months in a rowboat in the South Pacific Ocean might sound like a nightmare.But for British women Jess Rowe, 28, and Miriam Payne, 25, the blisters and salt sores are all just part of the adventure of a lifetime, as they row from South America to Australia in their nine-metre vessel, Velocity. Continue reading...

UN official says: Whether meningitis ... diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we're talking about a mammoth amount of work'. This live blog is closed

Prime minister says CGIL head is clouded by resentment' and accuses left wing of hypocrisy towards womenGiorgia Meloni has condemned the boss of Italy's biggest trade union after he referred to the prime minister as the courtesan" of Donald Trump.Maurizio Landini, the leader of CGIL, which organised several pro-Palestinian protests before the Gaza ceasefire deal, made the remarks on TV on Tuesday, the day after world leaders, including Meloni, met in Egypt for a Middle East peace summit. Continue reading...

Group of like-minded extremists' styled themselves after the SS and amassed arsenal of more than 200 weaponsThree neo-Nazi extremists who amassed an arsenal of more than 200 weapons and were planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues in England have been jailed for between eight and 11 years.Christopher Ringrose, 35, Marco Pitzettu, 26, and Brogan Stewart, 25, communicated online and formed a group with, a jury heard, like-minded extremists" who wanted to go to war for their chosen cause". Continue reading...

Former Nationals leader has not commented on reports but any defection would be a blow for his party and the Coalition under Sussan Ley

Monarch will join Pope Leo XIV at an ecumenical service in Sistine Chapel during visit to the Vatican next monthKing Charles will become the first reigning English monarch since Henry VIII split from Rome in 1534 to pray publicly with a pope during his state visit to the Holy See next week.The king will join Pope Leo XIV at an ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel during his visit with the queen to the Vatican on 22-23 October, a gesture regarded as a significant moment" in relations between the Catholic church and the Church of England, of which Charles is supreme governor. Continue reading...

War in the air is becoming increasingly significant as conflict on the ground becomes bogged downFirst came the sound of drones. Then a boom that rattled windows. Shortly after that, two columns of black smoke rose over the Shebelinka gas processing plant in Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Towering flames threatened storage tanks.A refinery worker emerged from the site. Russian drones and missiles had struck the plant at 4.30am, he said. For now there was nothing for the fire crews to do but to stand back and watch. Continue reading...

Non-dom regime was abolished in April and carmaker says some people are getting out of that country'Ferrari has cut the number of cars it sells in the UK as wealthy individuals relocate overseas after tax changes and the abolition of non-dom status.The Italian luxury carmaker reportedly began limiting the number of vehicles it exported to the UK about six months ago, in an attempt to stop a decline in their residual value. Continue reading...

The RBA is holding fire on further rate cuts until it is confident that inflation is easing. But the latest jobs data complicates matters

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Trump tariffs are not meant to apply to returned goods if they were manufactured in the US

US president has repeatedly hinted at supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks but some in Moscow say Kremlin sees it as negotiating gambitVolodymyr Zelenskyy will head to the White House on Friday for a crucial meeting with Donald Trump, hours after the US president said he had agreed to another summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest after a very productive" call.The possible supply of US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine is expected to top the agenda during the Ukrainian president's visit. Trump has repeatedly hinted in recent weeks that he may deliver Tomahawks, which would give Kyiv its longest-range weapon yet that would be capable of striking Moscow with accurate, destructive munitions. Continue reading...