by Samantha Lock (now); Richard Luscombe, Léonie Cha on (#609SA)
This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereAn industrial zone where about 500 civilians are sheltering is under heavy artillery fire from Russian forces, Reuters reported the regional governor saying.Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that includes Sievierodonetsk, said on Facebook that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city and fighting there was fierce. Continue reading...
The UK government hopes a little-known legal principle will overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreementIn justifying its attempt to unilaterally overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement with the EU, the UK government has invoked a little-known legal principle known as the “doctrine of necessity”. The loophole is allowed by the UN’s International Law Commission to be used by a state facing “grave and imminent peril”.But the government’s ex-legal adviser Jonathan Jones said the EU would find the use of the doctrine “completely unpersuasive”. Continue reading...
Mounting violence in the north of the country linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State groupGunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, in the latest attack in the west African country, which is seeing mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists.Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Séno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher, with some saying as many as 100 had died. Continue reading...
Home Office source says individual legal cases mean too few people may be able to board plane anywayTwo last-ditch legal challenges that attempted to halt the inaugural flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda have been rejected by judges.The court of appeal upheld a previous decision to reject an injunction blocking the first flight, which was due to take off for the east African state on Tuesday. Continue reading...
President faces a messy scramble if he cannot achieve absolute majority in second round of electionsA new alliance of the French left is putting pressure on Emmanuel Macron’s grouping in the second round of the parliament election, as the president tries to hold on to his parliamentary majority.Macron’s centrists could lose dozens of seats in France’s national assembly in the final next Sunday after a strong showing by a historic alliance of parties on the left, led by the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed with the Socialists and the Greens. Continue reading...
HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, was involved in major fraud at its Reading branch in early 2000sVictims of one of Britain’s biggest banking frauds will each be offered £3m compensation packages, according to a source familiar with the proposed deal expected to be announced later this week.Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) – which is now part of Lloyds Banking Group – was involved in a major fraud at its Reading branch in the early 2000s. Continue reading...
The acclaimed character actor reportedly died peacefully ‘surrounded by loved ones’Actor Philip Baker Hall, known for films such as Magnolia and Boogie Nights, has died at the age of 90.The news was initially shared by his neighbour and Los Angeles Times writer Sam Farmer on Twitter. “My neighbor, friend, and one of the wisest, most talented and kindest people I’ve ever met, Philip Baker Hall, died peacefully last night,” he wrote. “He was surrounded by loved ones. The world has an empty space in it.” Continue reading...
Data suggests exits after invasion of Ukraine, while UAE predicted to overtake US and UK as top destination for world’s wealthyMore than 15,000 millionaires are expected to flee Russia this year, as wealthy citizens turn their back on Vladmir Putin’s regime after the invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis of migration data.About 15% of Russians with more than $1m (£820,000) in ready assets are expected to have emigrated to other countries by the end of 2022, according to projects based on migration data by Henley & Partners, a London-based firm that acts as matchmaker between the super-rich and countries selling their citizenships. Continue reading...
Announcement of closed trial coincides with uproar over unrelated assault at restaurant in TangshanThe Chinese Canadian pop star Kris Wu has gone on trial for alleged rape and other offences in Beijing, as China was in uproar over a video showing a group of men physically assaulting four women in the city of Tangshan.Wu’s closed trial on Friday at the Chaoyang people’s court was reported late on Friday night by Chang’An Net, which belongs to China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, in turn controlled by the ruling Communist party. Continue reading...
Actor charged with four counts of sexual assault to appear at Westminster magistrates court on ThursdayKevin Spacey will appear at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men, the Metropolitan police said.The Oscar-winning actor has been charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men, Scotland Yard added. He has also been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. Continue reading...
David Venables accused of killing wife, Brenda, in Worcestershire in 1982 in order to continue affairAn 89-year-old retired pig farmer who killed his wife so he could continue a longstanding affair hid her remains in a septic tank for nearly 40 years, a court has heard.David Venables is on trial for the murder of his wife, Brenda Venables, whom he reported missing on 4 May 1982. Continue reading...
Martin Hibbert, 45, reaches 5,685-metre summit in wheelchair as he aims to raise £1m for Spinal Injuries AssociationA man left paralysed by the Manchester Arena bomb has conquered the summit of Africa’s highest mountain in his wheelchair.Martin Hibbert, 45, broke into singing and dancing as he reached the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro with his support team of helpers and local guides. Continue reading...
Actor says she doesn’t blame jurors for ruling against her in defamation trial but criticizes online commentatorsAmber Heard doesn’t blame jurors for ruling against her in the defamation trial pitting her against her fellow actor and former husband Johnny Depp over domestic abuse allegations, but she did dismiss the social media commentary surrounding the case as “unfair” to her, she said in her first remarks since the blockbuster verdict.Heard made the statements during a sit-down interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, a preview of which aired on Monday morning on the network’s Today show. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#609Z9)
Suleman Altaf, 44, accused of killing Jakub Szymanski and attempted murder of teenager’s motherA man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a 15-year-old boy and the attempted murder of the teenager’s mother.Jakub Szymanski was fatally stabbed while reportedly trying to protect his mother during the attack in Manchester on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#609ZA)
Bereaved relative says ‘justice is not being given to us’, five years on from disaster that killed 72 peopleBritain should be ashamed of its response to the Grenfell disaster, survivors and bereaved relatives have said as they prepare to mark the fifth anniversary with memorial services at Westminster Abbey and beside the ruined tower in west London.Community leaders warned of a “great sense of anger” at the government and frustration at the lack of progress on criminal charges that could lead to those found responsible for the spread of the fire, which killed 72 people, being jailed. Police have made only one arrest despite evidence disclosed at the public inquiry of what the bereaved allege is fraudulent behaviour by companies that made combustible materials that led to deaths. Continue reading...
by Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent on (#609VK)
Judge rules Guardian journalist successfully established public interest defence under Defamation ActThe multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks has lost his libel action against the Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr, in a significant decision for public interest journalism.Banks, who funded the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, sued Cadwalladr personally over two instances in which she said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state – one in a Ted Talk and the other in a tweet. Continue reading...
Thinktank highlights ‘worrying trend’ among nuclear-armed states at time of heightened tensionsThe world’s nuclear arsenal is expected to increase in the coming years for the first time since the end of cold war at a time that the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and weapons thinktank has said.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv have heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said on Monday. Continue reading...
Groups set up to help out neighbours in 2020 are now helping people cope with cost of living, say campaignersFour in 10 of the mutual aid groups that were set up at the start of the pandemic to make it easier for neighbours to help each other are still active and many have become established charities helping local people cope with the cost of living crisis, analysis suggests.When the pandemic began, an estimated 4,000 mutual aid groups sprang up to offer assistance to those in need with a range of essential activities, from food shopping to collecting prescriptions and providing Covid information. Continue reading...
Protesters march in city centre as anger grows over Priti Patel’s refugee schemeHundreds of Mancunians – many of them from charities, campaign groups and religious organisations – gathered in the city’s St Peter’s Square on Sunday to protest against the government’s plan to deport refugees to Rwanda.With just two days to go before the first refugees are due to board flights to the central African country, the protest was one of a number taking place across the UK, and was happening amid further legal challenges after the high court ruled last week that the flights can go ahead. Continue reading...
Business secretary says people ‘rightly frustrated’ over 5p-a-litre cut not being passed onThe business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has asked the UK’s competition watchdog to urgently review petrol station operators, amid concerns that retailers have not passed on the recent cut to fuel duty.In a letter to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Kwarteng wrote that people were “rightly frustrated” that the 5p-a-litre reduction had not stopped prices from soaring to record levels at forecourts. Continue reading...
Nearly half of the companies have under a third of board roles occupied by women, with three-quarters entirely whiteHalf of the smaller 252 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange have no female executive leaders such as chief executives and chief financial officers despite the push for boardroom diversity, research shows.Nearly half of these smaller firms are also missing the target of having a third of their board roles occupied by women, and three-quarters of their boards are entirely white. Continue reading...
PM could join lecture circuit and rejoin paper where he complained of ‘chicken feed’ £250,000 salaryBoris Johnson could make more than £5m a year after he leaves Downing Street, experts have estimated.The figure will be welcome news to a prime minister who is said to regularly complain to friends that he is hard up, citing his second divorce, several children and his reduced income since entering No 10. Continue reading...
Prof Jon Tonge has won most of his political bets, so here are some predictions from a ‘trumped-up Nostradamus’Prof Jon Tonge has faced remorseless teasing since being hailed as the “Mystic Meg of political science” for accurately predicting Monday’s confidence vote in Boris Johnson.When he turned up to a conference in Belfast on Thursday, an academic colleague said “the soothsayer has just walked in”. And his youngest daughter asked him: “If you can see things, how come you can’t tell you’re a complete loser?” Continue reading...
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, missing for more than five days, had failed to show up in Atalaia do Norte at the end of a reporting tripHopes of finding a British journalist and a Brazilian guide faded on Friday as police announced an unsettling development in the search for the two men last seen five days ago on a remote river in Amazonia.“Search teams found on the river, near to Atalaia do Norte, apparently human organic material,” Brazil’s federal police said in a statement. Continue reading...
Pontiff, 85, had planned to visit Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early JulyPope Francis has scrapped a trip to Africa owing to an ongoing problem with his knee, raising further scrutiny about the 85-year-old pontiff’s health.The Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the planned visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early July had been cancelled “at the request of his doctors in order not to jeopardise the results of the therapy that he is undergoing for his knee” and would be rescheduled to a later date. Continue reading...
Oscar-winning actor will attend funeral of brother Jonathan Waters who was hit by vehicle in CaliforniaThe Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance has pulled out of three performances of the West End show Jerusalem after his younger brother was killed in a bicycle accident in California.Jonathan Waters, a 60-year-old sommelier, was cycling in Oakland when he was hit by a vehicle last month. He suffered head injuries and died a day after the accident. Continue reading...
Analysis: Saturday expected to be start of joint earliest heatwave since records beganThrough the second half of this week, heat has gradually built across Spain, encouraging temperatures to reach widely 35-40C. Across central and southern parts they are forecast to rise even further this weekend. On Saturday temperatures are expected to exceed 40C in places and it will be the joint earliest heatwave since records began, tied with a heatwave that started on 11 June 1981. Records such as this are commonplace now, and more will be broken for decades to come as our atmosphere continues to hold increasing amounts of heat.In northern Africa and the Middle East, 50C is a common threshold to be broken during summer. However, this year the city of Al Jahra in Kuwait experienced this temperature threshold broken on 4 June – early compared with a normal year. The heat that has lingered across northern Africa throughout the week continued to bring temperatures into the low 50s celsius, and then pushed north into Spain through the latter half of this week. This is in large part due to a mass of very warm subtropical air, alongside high pressure centred over the Atlantic coinciding to allow for the warm air mass across Africa to be brought up on the southerly flow. Continue reading...
Urine tests not predictive enough to tell whether a woman is going through the phase, experts warnWomen are wasting their time and money buying do-at-home menopause testing kits, doctors have warned.The urine tests are not predictive enough to tell whether a woman is going through the phase when her periods will stop, doctors have told the BBC. Continue reading...
Singer who had chart hit with Falling in 1990 ‘left this realm on her own terms’ according to husbandJulee Cruise, the singer whose ethereal music deepened the drama of David Lynch’s work, has died aged 65.Her husband, Edward Grinnan, wrote on Facebook: “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace … I played her [B-52’s song] Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.” Continue reading...
‘What is this, 2004???’ Clarke Gayford posted in response to Australian PM’s gift of Midnight Oil, Spiderbait and Powderfinger albumsJacinda Ardern’s fiancee has taken a cheeky swipe at Anthony Albanese’s music taste after the Australian prime minister and his New Zealand counterpart exchanged records during the pair’s first face-to-face meeting.Ardern and Albanese, who have both moonlighted as DJs in the past, made the customary display of gift-giving at their first meeting since the federal election in Sydney on Thursday, with both opting for the high-risk, high-reward gift of music. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#606VV)
As five-year anniversary approaches, figures reveal public inquiry into the fire has spent £149m so farLegal bills relating to the Grenfell Tower fire are on course to top a quarter of a billion pounds, according to figures obtained by the Guardian on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the disaster.The public inquiry into the causes of the fire that killed 72 people in the west London tower block has spent £149m so far with more than £60m going to lawyers working for the core participants, the inquiry revealed on Thursday. Continue reading...
Disagreements have led to delay in course rollout as civil servants think empire material ‘too controversial’Civil servants have attempted to “sanitise” a Home Office teaching module on race, empire and colonialism, according to those involved in devising a mandatory course on British history for the department’s 36,000 employees.Disagreements have led to a year-long delay in the rollout of the project, which was due to be launched in June 2021. Home Office civil servants are understood to be nervous that some of the proposed material addressing issues of race, colonialism and empire is “too controversial” and have urged academics to tone down some of the content. Continue reading...
Union says plan to make reporters do their own archival research will massively increase workloads. Plus: is it really a press conference if no one turns up?
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