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It is first time second in line to throne has appeared alone on an official coinAn engraving of the Duke of Cambridge, firm of gaze and strong of jaw, will appear on a new £5 coin struck by the Royal Mint to mark his 40th birthday.The design, unveiled ahead of his milestone on 21 June, also incorporates his royal cypher featuring the letter W and the number 40, created by designer and engraver Thomas T Docherty. Continue reading...

An anonymous worker shares their experience, as study shows half of UK MPs’ staff have clinical levels of psychological distress

Exclusive: Calls grow for culture change as aides say they are at ‘breaking point’ after years of crises

Sussan Ley or Jane Hume likely to be deputy Liberal leader as Coalition continues to grapple with election fallout

New foreign affairs minister tells Pacific leaders Australia ‘will listen because we care’ after reports China may be seeking security agreement with Kiribati

Northern NSW continues to be hammered by rain and Queensland’s south-east back on flood watch

West Midlands police arrest woman, 27, after sudden death of infant at Birmingham children’s hospitalA nurse at Birmingham children’s hospital has been arrested on suspicion of administering poison after the death of an infant last Thursday.West Midlands police said the 27-year-woman was later released while investigations continued. Continue reading...

Major polling companies changed methods after 2019 failure but two-party preferred measure misses Greens and independents

Anastasiya Tikha and her husband, Arthur Lee, fought their way through bombs and gunfire to save the array of animals in their care

Researchers are investigating possible links to Covid-19, which has already been shown to cause liver problems in some patientsA dangerous and mysterious illness continues to spread among children, and so do questions over what’s causing it, including possible links to Covid-19. But it’s too soon to tell what is behind the cases, experts say.More than 600 cases of hepatitis with no known cause have been identified around the globe since October 2021, and many of the cases are in previously healthy children now stricken with severe illness. Continue reading...

Residents of Pir Koh say poor water provision and a dirty water tank led to 26 deaths, the majority among children under sevenTwo weeks ago, Ruqiyya Bibi fell sick. The two-year-old was vomiting constantly; her father, Mohammed Iqbal, took her to a basic health unit in Pir Koh, a impoverished town with a population of 40,000 in the mountains of Balochistan, south-western Pakistan.Iqbal was told at first that his daughter had malaria but when treatment did not help, he took her to another doctor who said she had a blood condition. Continue reading...

NGO takes down photos of girl, 16, from DRC from website after critics call them unethical and racistMédecins Sans Frontières has removed photographs of a teenage rape survivor from its website after criticism that the images were unethical and racist.MSF took down two photos of a 16-year-old girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was gang-raped by three armed men afterphotographers, activists and human rights lawyers condemned the images on Twitter. Continue reading...

Former minister Gareth Ward, who has professed his innocence, has already been suspended from parliament

State media photos show Kim carrying Hyon Chol-hae’s coffin and throwing earth into his grave as country battles ‘fever’ cases amid Covid outbreakKim Jong-un attended the funeral for a top North Korean official, state media reported on Monday, helping carry his coffin, as the country maintained the much-disputed claim that its coronavirus outbreak is subsiding.The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim attended the funeral on Sunday of Hyon Chol-hae, a Korean People’s Army marshal who reportedly played a key role in grooming him as the country’s next leader before Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, died in late 2011. Continue reading...

Prime minister said it was helpful that new Australian leader had already acknowledged issues causing frictionNew Zealand will continue to push the conversation on Australia’s “problematic” deportation policy with the incoming government under Labor leader Anthony Albanese, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said.“There is obviously a really strong relationship, regardless of leader, regardless of party,” Ardern said at a post-cabinet briefing on Monday. “The very nature of New Zealand and Australia’s relationship is strong and enduring.” Continue reading...

Health minister says hospitalisations are doubling every week, with people aged 10-39 most at risk of severe illness

The newly sworn-in PM has confirmed Australia’s parliament will meet before the end of July – what is at the top of his post-election agenda?

One-off performance in London brings together people who have experienced vocal loss with professional singersIn March 2020, Tanja Bage, a singer and performer, made a phone recording of herself for her children, then aged four and coming up to two. “I’m going to sound a little bit different,” she told them. “You’re not going to remember.”Poignantly, she added: “I like my voice, I like the way I sound.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: government response to gambling deaths is ‘more of same system that killed Jack’, say parents of Jack RitchieThe mother of a young man who killed himself after becoming addicted to gambling says more parents will grieve like her and her husband because the government is not doing enough to take on the industry.Jack Ritchie took his own life aged 24 having become addicted to gambling in sixth form. Continue reading...

Party leader refuses to rule out split from Liberals, saying it’s a ‘decision for both parties’ but his ‘preference’ is for Coalition to continue

Huge clean-up after Ontario and Quebec hit by tornado-like weather, felling trees, uprooting utility poles and cutting power to more than 500,000The death toll from powerful thunderstorms in Canada’s two most populous provinces has risen to at least eight, authorities said on Sunday, as emergency crews continued a massive clean-up to restore power to half a million people.The storms, which lasted more than two hours Saturday afternoon and packed the power of a tornado, left a trail of destruction in parts of Ontario and Quebec. Wind gusts as strong as 132kmh (82mph) felled trees, uprooted electric poles and toppled many metal transmission towers, utility companies said. Continue reading...

William Parker Skelland abused children at Burwood boys’ home in 1973 and 1974A former carer at a Victorian boys’ orphanage in the 1970s will spend at least four years in prison for sexually abusing five of the young children.William Parker Skelland, 81, was living in the UK in 2019 when he was arrested for his crimes and extradited back to Australia to answer for them. Continue reading...

Labor’s climate plan is designed to limit the political risk of a scare campaign – but there are already calls for it to go beyond its headline commitments

Some media portrayals of cases among African and LGBTI people fueling blame, agency says, as infections reported in Europe, US and AustraliaThe United Nations’ Aids agency has called some reporting on the monkeypox virus racist and homophobic, warning of exacerbating stigma and undermining the response to the growing outbreak.UNAIDS said “a significant proportion” of recent monkeypox cases have been identified among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. Continue reading...

Kyiv says it will not agree to a ceasefire that involves handing territory to Russia; Ukrainian president says up to 100 Ukrainians dying every day on eastern front

This blog is now closed. Please join us again in a few hours when we will relaunch our live blog and in the meantime check out our latest Ukraine coverage here.Gazprom halts gas exports to FinlandRussia’s state gas company, Gazprom, said it has halted gas exports to Finland. The country refused Moscow’s demands to pay in roubles for Russian gas after western countries imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.In addition to the humanitarian catastrophe created by the (Russian) occupiers and collaborators, the city is on the verge of an outbreak of infectious diseases, he said on the messaging app Telegram. Continue reading...

Ministers remain unable to decide on ways to relieve poverty as they wrangle over windfall tax for energy companiesBoris Johnson hopes to blunt calls for urgent action on the cost of living crisis by stressing that work is the best route out of poverty, as ministers continue wrangling about the merits of a windfall tax.No 10 sources confirmed on Sunday that the prime minister will continue to throw the spotlight on the healthy state of the job market, in the face of the rising clamour to help families struggling with their bills. Continue reading...

Experts say many others are denied help, and ‘relentless’ rise in demand could overwhelm NHS

Analysis: As Labor focused on opportunities for working people in the transition to renewables, the Greens mounted a formidable on-the-ground campaign

Would-be Labor candidate for Fowler says it ‘absolutely’ mattered that Keneally did not reflect electorate’s high diversity

Senior executive at Guide Dogs charity says he was ‘publicly humiliated’ by security guardA senior executive at the charity Guide Dogs said he felt “publicly humiliated” when he and his guide dog, Faldo, were illegally told to leave a Marks & Spencer shop in west London.Dave Kent, 62, a corporate engagement executive at the charity who has been totally blind since he was 18, said he was “curtly” asked to take his golden retriever out of the Mortlake department store three times by a security guard last Friday. Continue reading...

Whistleblowers say North East Ambulance Service managers kept inconvenient facts from coronerAn ambulance service in north-east England has apologised to bereaved relatives after covering up mistakes made by paramedics when responding to patients who later died.The chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) offered her “unreserved apologies” for “historic failings” after whistleblowers told the Sunday Times that managers filtered out inconvenient facts from incident reports before they were sent to the coroner, in order to present paramedics in a more flattering light.In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...

Viktor Ovsyannikov speaks out on his defence of a 21-year-old tank commander who shot and killed an unarmed civilian

Move is part of hardline pivot after militants hinted at more moderate restrictions when taking power last yearAfghanistan’s Taliban rulers have begun enforcing an order requiring all female TV news presenters in the country to cover their faces while on air, as part of a hardline shift that has drawn condemnation from rights activists.After the order was announced on Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. However, on Sunday most female presenters were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice began enforcing the decree. Continue reading...

UCU climbdown allows individual campuses to decide on strike action; 20 universities plan to go aheadThe long-running industrial dispute over pension cuts and working conditions at UK universities appears to be faltering, after union branches abandoned a national marking strike due to start this week that could delay students from graduating.Last month, 41 branches of the University and College Union (UCU) backed a national marking and assessment boycott, supported by 86% of staff who returned ballots. But only 20 universities are going ahead with a boycott after opposition from branches and members led to national action being curtailed by the union’s executive in favour of letting individual campuses decide. Continue reading...

Russian airstrikes hit Mykolaiv and Donbas regions; only Ukraine can decide its future, says Polish president

Ashley Mullenger talks about the difficulties of finding the right boots and lifejackets, and getting more women into the industryBeing a woman in the male-dominated fishing industry has presented some challenges for Ashley Mullenger, who has become the first woman to win a Fisherman of the Year award.“It’s little things like the ankle cut on the boots we wear – for men it’s wider and you need to have good ankle support on a boat when you’re working on a moving deck. It took me a while to find boots suitable for commercial fishing and for women,” she says. Continue reading...

Palestinians in Masafer Yatta – or Firing Zone 918 to the Israelis – vow to rebuild as homes are bulldozedBelow the dusty plateau, home to Khribet al-Fakhiet village, on the southern edge of the occupied West Bank, sheep, goats and camels belonging to Palestinian Bedouin roam the hills. The Israeli town of Arad glitters in the distance and, across the valley to the east, the mountains of neighbouring Jordan rise up to meet the sky. Much closer to home, the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yair looms from the next ridge.Bone-shattering unpaved roads crisscross this poverty-stricken, hilly semi-desert, part of the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. Palestinians call it Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages with a population of about 1,000. To the Israeli state, however, this is Firing Zone 918, a military training area in which civilians are prohibited. The fight for control of this 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) is one of the fiercest battles of the Israeli occupation. Continue reading...

Head of Howard League urges party to abandon ‘cheap politics’ and develop evidence-based positionThe Labour party is indulging in “cheap politics” by accusing the Conservatives repeatedly of being soft on crime, the head of a leading prison reform charity has claimed.Andrea Coomber QC, the chief executive of the Howard League, said the opposition is trying to outflank Boris Johnson’s government on law and order instead of developing evidence-based policies to solve a crisis within the criminal justice system. Continue reading...

Pacific leaders welcome Labor’s plan for action on climate while one French minister says defeat of Scott Morrison ‘suits me very well’

Titmus’s time of 3 minutes 56.4 seconds broke the previous record set by American rival Katie Ledecky at the 2016 OlympicsAriarne Titmus has broken the women’s 400 metres freestyle world record at the Australian championships.Titmus clocked three minutes 3 minutes 56.40 seconds in Sunday night’s final in Adelaide. Continue reading...

Group call for fresh taxation of wealthy to tackle cost of living crisis and gulf between rich and poorA group of millionaires have joined protests against the World Economic Forum gathering of the business and political elite in Davos, Switzerland, demanding that governments “tax us now” to tackle the burgeoning gulf between rich and poor.The unlikely protesters, who describe themselves as “patriotic millionaires”, called on world leaders attending the annual conference on Sunday to immediately introduce fresh taxes on the wealthy in order to tackle the “cost of living scandal playing out in multiple nations around the world”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Condition most prevalent among those who had Covid, raising possibility of link with Parkinson’s diseaseScientists have reported a two- to fourfold increase in the prevalence of dream-enactment disorder – whereby people physically act out their dreams – during the pandemic, with those who have been infected with Covid the most likely to experience it.Given that the phenomenon can be an early indicator of Parkinson’s disease, it is possible the virus has triggered brain changes that could increase people’s risk of developing the condition. The researchers, however, stressed that it could also be the result of pandemic-induced stress and that further research was needed to explore the link. Continue reading...

Over 50 specialists skilled in delivering crude explosive working with Putin’s forces

Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will surprise the residents of Albert Square at street partyThe Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall are to appear as themselves in an episode of EastEnders to mark the Queen’s Platinum jubilee.Charles and Camilla were filmed visiting a fictional Albert Square Jubilee street party when they visited the soap set in March, the BBC announced. Continue reading...

Landmark ruling follows case of three young Indigenous Mexicans detained and abused on suspicion of being Guatemalan migrantsMexican immigration agents can no longer conduct stop and search operations on buses and highways after the country’s supreme court ruled that such checks are racist, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.The landmark ruling, handed down in Mexico City on Wednesday, found in favour of three young Indigenous Mexicans who were detained and abused by immigration (INM) officials in 2015 during a US-backed crackdown. Continue reading...

Minister asked repeatedly for details on PM’s meeting with senior civil servant ahead of Partygate reportThe UK education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, has repeatedly refused to say who organised a meeting between Boris Johnson and top civil servant Sue Gray, as Westminster awaits her report into lockdown parties in Downing Street.It has emerged that the pair met, with both sides – No 10 and Gray’s team – denying they called the meeting. Continue reading...

Tayshan Hayden-Smith started gardening in a plot under a concrete flyover in west London. Now he’s at the top of his gameThe concrete space underneath the Westway, an elevated dual carriageway that cuts across the Victorian terraces of west London, is not a hospitable place for plants – nor for people, some would say. But it is nevertheless at the heart of the community that calls itself North Kensington. Between the Westway’s shadow and another dominant structure, the shrouded Grenfell Tower, sits a narrow slice of a garden.Lanterns hang from a tree, halfway down a path of bark chips leading to a welcoming bench. With planting that is green and tall, the little haven is so immersing that even the loud hum of overhead traffic is easily forgotten. The community green space owes its existence to Tayshan Hayden-Smith, a 19-year-old at the time of the Grenfell fire, who in its aftermath was gripped by an impulse to start planting things. He found a piece of wasteland and with no prior experience began to explore the two-way nurturing process of gardening. A promising footballer of mixed race, he was acutely embarrassed at the idea of being seen with a plant; he would duck out of sight when friends went past. “I felt so at home in the garden, but so out of place,” he says. Continue reading...

Many have been paying thousands of dollars in interest alone, with their principal debt hardly affected despite monthly paymentsIn 2001, Karen Herrera of Minnesota took advice from a Sallie Mae representative to consolidate her student loan debt with her husband’s. They both worked in the public sector, but due to their type of loans, they did not qualify for public service forgiveness. Herrera lost her job in 2009 due to the economic recession, and though the couple filed for bankruptcy, their student loan debts remained.Herrera and her husband have continued to make monthly payments throughout the pandemic, as their loans through the Federal Family Education Loan Program were not eligible for the pause on payments. Continue reading...

Dan Tehan and Karen Andrews both touted as potential challengers, but conservatives confident Dutton has the numbers to succeed Scott Morrison