After reports of explosions near Kyiv broke, US president Joe Biden accused Putin of choosing a ‘premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life’

More than 8,000 people died, the highest death toll from a recorded weather event in Great BritainThe list of the worst disasters that have befallen Great Britain is topped by the Black Death of 1347-50 when about 3.5 million died. The current Covid pandemic is placed sixth, behind the 1557 influenza outbreak, which claimed 200,000 lives.The highest placed weather-related death toll is the great storm of 1703 when 8,000 were killed. Hurricane-force winds sank dozens of ships in the Channel and North Sea including a number of Royal Navy warships. Some vessels that did survive were driven hundreds of miles north and west before the sailors could regain control of their vessels. Continue reading...

After 30 years of critical acclaim, the actor has finally found mainstream success at 44. She talks about Hollywood’s dangerous beauty standards, turning down misogynistic scripts – and why her TV show about possible teenage cannibals is so much funIt would not surprise me if Melanie Lynskey had deliberately matched her pale blouse to the pale curtains behind her, and her pale complexion, the better to blend into the background. After 30 years of critical acclaim, but not mainstream fame, Lynskey is getting noticed and it feels very, very strange to her. Her show, Yellowjackets, has steadily become a hit. Lynskey is not quite the lead in this ensemble piece, but near enough, as one of four fortysomething women who survived a plane crash as teenagers, and went through some savage stuff, involving murder and almost certainly cannibalism.Likened to a mix of Lord of the Flies, Lost and Mean Girls, with a pleasing amount of 90s nostalgia, it has become one of the most talked-about shows of the moment. “It’s funny to be on something that people are watching,” Lynskey says with a laugh. “It’s a different experience.” Continue reading...

Foreign office’s ‘top-down’ approach failing people it is seeking to protect, says watchdog, with abuse cases still underreportedThe British government has not listened to victims in its efforts to tackle abuse in the humanitarian sector after the “sex for aid” scandals, a UK watchdog has said.The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai) said the government was falling short because of a “top-down” approach and needed to listen and learn from recipients of aid who remained reluctant to report abuse allegations. Continue reading...

More and more young people are enticed by the glittering promises of a career as an influencer – but it’s usually someone else getting richI was a 14-year-old schoolboy when the rapper 50 Cent released Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The most precocious kids in class declared the debut hip-hop album an instant classic and hailed the rapper’s legend: “He’s been shot nine times, you know?” The failed attempt on 50 Cent’s life was at the centre of his sales pitch as the bulletproof king of gangsta rap. My friends and I were easily sold. His debut was the bestselling album of 2003, selling 12m copies worldwide. Curtis Jackson may have been born black and poor in New York, but as 50 Cent, he was now worth $30m.There are few things we find more compelling than a fable of overcoming the odds and achieving self-made success. Everyone loves an outsider, because deep down most of us believe we are one, and each generation has its own version for inspiration. For me, it was the constant reinvention of the hustler made good in hip-hop that stuck. Continue reading...

Explosions heard after Putin announces operation to ‘demilitarise’ Ukraine. Follow the latest news and updates

A risk assessment tabled in the Fair Work Commission casts doubt on when transport minister David Elliott first knew of a shutdown

Ukraine crisis has thrust Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik into centre of events, amid claim they are puppets of Putin

Incident comes a month after prime minister’s vehicle was chased and forced on to a curb by demonstratorsA group of shouting protesters have chased the New Zealand prime minister’s van down a driveway as she visited a Christchurch primary school, amid tensions over increasingly volatile anti-vaccine mandate protests.Jacinda Ardern, who was visiting a primary school in Christchurch, was met by a crowd of people shouting “shame on you” and “traitor”. Some held signs saying that the prime minister would be “put on trial” and “held responsible”, and one man brandished a fabricated arrest warrant – references to conspiracy theories that a cohort of world leaders and powerful people are secretly using vaccines to commit a genocide, and would soon be put on trial and hanged for treason. Continue reading...

Serving officer in Australian Defence Force tells defamation trial Roberts-Smith showed photos of dead insurgents on his iPod

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a powerful address directed to Russia. 'We will defend ourselves, he said. 'Not attack, but defend ourselves. And when you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs, but our faces.' Zelenskiy made the remarks in a 10-minute address posted on Telegram during which he spoke in both Ukrainian and Russian. The Ukrainian leader said Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, had not replied to his invitation to hold talks

City, which is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy, is registering thousands of cases a day in its worst-ever wave of the virusHong Kong’s government has invoked emergency powers to allow doctors and nurses from the Chinese mainland to practise in the financial hub as it struggles to tackle a spiralling coronavirus outbreak.“The regulation will provide a legal framework for the CPG (central people’s government) to render the necessary emergent support to Hong Kong in a more effective and expeditious manner,” the government said in a statement. Continue reading...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeals to Russian people to help prevent war after request from separatist leaders sets stage for Putin to order troops over border

Bumzu is one of the most influential people in K-pop, helping shape South Korea’s multibillion-dollar global music businessWhen Jin from the superstar boyband BTS released Super Tuna – an upbeat song about his favourite pastime, fishing – it instantly went viral.The track, written to commemorate the star’s birthday, has logged more than 53m YouTube views since December, and on TikTok the #SuperTuna hashtag has inspired a viral dance challenge. Continue reading...

The journalist’s career was dramatically paused when Stand News was raided – and now he is in limboThree months ago Ronson Chan was working as deputy assignment editor at Stand News, one of Hong Kong’s independent and pro-democracy news sites. His job involved assigning news stories to the team of reporters, helping set the editorial agenda and running the outlet’s social media posts.As head of the Hong Kong Journalism Association he had seen up close the fallout from the Beijing media crackdown – closures, arrests, the offshoring of international bureaus. Continue reading...

The 27-year-old was hit by a police car as he chased his last hostage, who ran from the store when water was deliveredA 27-year-old man who held people hostage at an Apple store in Amsterdam has died in hospital from his injuries, Dutch prosecutors have said.The man, said to be a resident of the city, entered the Apple store on Leidseplein armed with two guns, sparking a five-hour siege on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Move comes as case numbers and deaths continue to fall in many nations

Seven-square-metre ‘posh cell’ in Lower Clapton fetches £90,000 at auctionA 7-square-metre microflat, cramming in a bed, toilet, shower, sink and a microwave tucked under the pillow, has sold for 80% above its minimum listing price at £90,000.The microflat, located in a Victorian conversion in Lower Clapton, east London, is believed to be the capital’s smallest-ever property, marking a turn towards tiny homes driven by the UK’s housing crisis of soaring rent and property prices. Continue reading...

The identity of those targeted has not been officially confirmed, but here are five of the most prominent figuresThe EU has approved asset freezes and travel bans on various Russian people and entities in response to Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognise the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.The list of those targeted has not been officially confirmed, but here are five of the most prominent names the Guardian has seen on a draft list. Continue reading...

Applause in national assembly as lawmakers vote to extend limit for ending pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeksFrance has extended its time limit for abortion after an epic battle in parliament, amid anger that thousands of women had to travel abroad each year to terminate pregnancies in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain or England because of French restrictions.There was applause in the French national assembly on Wednesday when lawmakers voted definitively to extend the legal limit for ending a pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeks. France’s new time frame is still lower than in some other European countries, including England at 24 weeks. Continue reading...

Friends and colleagues pay tribute to actor, 85, who died in fire at Ilford homeThe former On the Buses and EastEnders actor Anna Karen has died in a fire at her east London home.Firefighters rushed to the blaze on the ground floor of a terrace house in Windsor Road, Ilford, shortly after 10.30pm on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Extreme temperatures due to climate crisis are resulting in higher rate of hospital visits, say scientistsHot summer temperatures drive up the number of people suffering mental health emergencies, the most comprehensive study to date has found.The analysis of medical records from millions of US citizens showed an average 8% rise in the rate of emergency hospital visits on days when the temperature was in the top 5% of those recorded across the decade-long study. Continue reading...

Change comes into effect as requirement for people with Covid to self-isolate is lifted in England

The former secretary to the disgraced president talks about his new memoir and what it was like to go to prison for NixonHe was at the side of the American president on one of the most important diplomatic trips in history, enjoying sumptuous banquets as a guest of Chinese dictator Mao Zedong.Three and a half years later he was in prison after becoming first person to go on trial in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, despite protesting his innocence. Continue reading...

Farmer says his Hereford turned up one week after going missing when torrential rain hit his farm on New Zealand’s west coastA young bull that was swept into a surging river during flooding on New Zealand’s West Coast has miraculously survived the ordeal, turning up unharmed a week later, 80 kilometres (49 miles) downstream, snuffling about in a blackberry bush.Deer and cattle farmer, Tony Peacock, said the 18-month-old bull was grazing with 37 others in a paddock in the Shenandoah area above the Maruia River, on 10 February, when torrential rain began falling. Continue reading...

After weeks of threats, Putin has ordered troops into eastern Ukraine. Shaun Walker and Patrick Wintour explain what the new stage of the crisis means for the country and its allies.After an angry, rambling, theatrical security meeting, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, announced that Russia had recognised the independence of two Russian-controlled territories in east Ukraine: the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Furthermore, he said, the Kremlin would be sending troops on a “peacekeeping mission” into the region. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison’s government told Australia’s membership of Open Government Partnership may be reviewed

‘Misleading’ messages from $55bn-a-year industry are ‘unethical’, says report, which calls for plain packaging rules similar to tobaccoCountries should clamp down on the “aggressive” and “unethical” marketing of formula milk for babies, including forcing companies to sell products in plain packaging, a report by the World Health Organization and Unicef has said.In research, commissioned 41 years after the global health community drew up guidelines aimed at regulating the industry, experts found that the marketing of formula had “no limits” and had become more “unregulated and invasive” in the digital age. Continue reading...

Analysis: Commentators and news websites have spread incorrect information on Covid deaths in Australia, feeding conspiracy theories

A day after Vladimir Putin recognised the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent, protesters gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Kyiv in a show of defiance against the Russian president's actions in their country. The Guardian's Luke Harding spoke to them about why they were protesting and what they thought of the recent escalating tension between Ukraine and Russia

German shorthaired pointer named Hertz given PDSA Dickin medal after sniffing out drugs and electronicsA retired military working dog named Hertz has been awarded a medal known as the animals’ Victoria Cross for his service in Afghanistan.The German shorthaired pointer is the first dog in British military history to detect electronic communications equipment such as mobile phones, voice recorders, sim cards and GPS devices. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people in Russia about their views on the situation with UkraineWe would like to hear from Russian people living and working in Russia about their thoughts on the situation with Ukraine.What is the mood like at the moment? What are your thoughts on the developments? We would also like to hear from Russians living in the UK, US or elsewhere. Continue reading...

Buckingham Palace says monarch suffering ‘mild cold-like symptoms’

Feeling the chill? Get knitting, or make some soup, or tackle the dirty dishes, or …Use natural materials to knit yourself a jumper – they are better for the planet and keep you warmer than artificial yarns. The beauty and benefits start almost as soon as you cast on, since the growing garment on your knees keeps you warm long before it’s ready to wear. Win-win! Carol Brook, West Yorkshire Continue reading...

A ghostly vision in a dream prompted the Texan folk-rockers to return after a decade away. The result is their most daring album yetThe next time you’re in the city of Denton, Texas, you could do worse than swing by the speakeasy-style Paschall Bar, pull up a stool and order a Pulido Old Fashioned. “It’s my signature cocktail,” grins Midlake’s frontman Eric Pulido from under a well-worn baseball cap. “I think they just started getting tired of me saying: ‘Instead of the sugar can you do Bénédictine [a liqueur], and then can you also put in maple bitters … ’”Pulido isn’t simply a fussy customer, but alongside the rest of Midlake actually owns this dimly lit, book-lined boozer, which, like so many others, found itself on the brink of collapse during the early stages of the pandemic. “We experienced the up and down of ‘We’re good’, ‘We’re not’, ‘Now we’re OK!’” offers Pulido with a sigh. “It was definitely a trying time, but I feel like we’re coming out of the woods now.” Continue reading...

The UK has some of the cheapest food in the world, but thanks to spiralling costs and the effects of Brexit, farmers like Rachel Hallos are on the edge. She explains why she could soon lose the way of life she loves – and her family depends on

This was a supreme leader marshalling his minions for a decision that will change the security architecture in Europe and may well lead to horrific war

Further 129 flood warnings in place across England and Wales after third severe storm in a week wreaks havocTwo severe “danger to life” flood warnings have been issued in Shropshire and Worcestershire after Storm Franklin brought a day of flooding, power cut misery and travel chaos on Monday.Parts of the historic village of Ironbridge were being evacuated as the river Severn threatened to overwhelm flood defences, and in Bewdley in Worcestershire, residents were told to expect flooding from Tuesday morning. The Environment Agency urged people to implement emergency flood defence plans and follow evacuation advice. Continue reading...

PM also tells Commons people with positive cases will no longer have to isolate from Thursday

Scott Morrison bowled up a scare campaign on national security but latest Guardian Essential poll suggests it is not working

A magnetic central performance from Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy anchors Matty Do’s excellently spooky tale of destructive hubrisFollowing the critically acclaimed Dearest Sister, Laos’s first female director, Mattie Do, has crafted another enigmatic tale that sets itself apart from the usual horror fare, offering plenty of genre pleasures while retaining an arthouse aesthetic. In an impoverished Laotian village, an unnamed farmer (Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy) leads a near-hermit-like existence. His daily rituals involve scavenging for metal scraps, which he sells for little money. His reticent demeanour, however, betrays none of his discontent.Yet, just as secrets lie beneath the landscape, he has skeletons in his closet. He is haunted by his mother’s death from severe lung disease, and while people whisper about his ability to speak to the dead, no one knows that, since his childhood encounter with a ghost, he has taken it upon himself to relieve dying women of their suffering by euthanising them. As their apparitions wander for eternity, these spectres embody his own inability to break free of the past. Continue reading...

With three named storms hitting country in just six days, experts reject claim people will become inured to threatIn just six days the UK has been battered by a triple whammy of Dudley, Eunice and Franklin and next up could be Gladys. But does the naming of storms heighten awareness to the danger, or inure us?Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, says that it does work and heightens awareness. “Having named storms gives them a kind of uniqueness, identity and higher profile … that need for people to listen and take action.” Continue reading...

JCVI formally advises another booster shot in spring for groups deemed most at risk from virus

Number of Palestinians killed rises year on year as firearms stolen from Israeli military proliferate on streetsThere has been a break in the rain, and the sun is shining on the orange groves of Bir al-Maksur, a quiet Bedouin village near Nazareth in Israel’s north.Three-year-old Ammar would have loved splashing in the winter puddles outside the Hujarat family’s home, his aunt said. But two days before, the little boy was shot and killed in a playground by a stray bullet fired during a car chase, and the grieving family is trying to make sense of the way his life ended. Continue reading...

PC Jonathan Cobban, 35, PC William Neville, 33, and former officer Joel Borders, 45, charged over alleged racist and misogynistic messagesProsecutors have named the police officers charged over allegedly sharing racist and misogynistic messages on a WhatsApp group that included the officer who kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard.The Crown Prosecution Service last Thursday announced charges against two serving and one former Metropolitan police officer, but kept their identities secret. Continue reading...

A cast of nonprofessional newcomers captivate in a realist drama reminiscent of Sarah Gavron’s RocksSwiss film-maker and former social worker Fred Baillif has created this pressure-cooked realist drama about a group of teen girls in a care home, where there is something more dysfunctional and tragic about the supervising staff than about the inmates themselves. Lora (Claudia Grob) is the director of this residential institution, a tough veteran of the system. Under her wing are troubled girls including Audrey (Anaïs Uldry), Précieuse (Joyce Esther Ndayisenga) and Justine (Charlie Areddy). Each of them is acting out, each has been abused in some way, but they find love and solidarity in this home: for them it is la famille, slangily shortened to la mif, equivalent, perhaps, to “the fam”.But from the very outset, it is Lora herself who is in serious trouble: she is officially reprimanded for allowing a situation to happen whereby one of the girls, at 17, has sex with a 14-year-old boy who has been allowed to visit with others for a party. She incautiously opens up to one of the girls about an unthinkably painful thing in her own life, and when this same girl spitefully throws this information back in Lora’s face during a later row, Lora’s drinking problem begins to resurface; she slaps one of the abusive mothers who insults her, having been unlawfully demanding to see her daughter at the home – and things spiral out of control from there. Continue reading...

Accident inspectors found many areas around site ‘had a medium or heavy level of contamination’Engineering work delayed the cleaning of rails in Salisbury last October, less than two hours before a passenger train skidded on leaves stuck to the line and crashed, injuring 14, investigators have found.The routine autumn cleaning work had been rescheduled from 5pm to 11pm the same evening but at 6.43pm a South Western Railway train was unable to stop on the slippery tracks and collided with a Great Western Railway service outside a tunnel near Salisbury, Wiltshire. Continue reading...

A bridge was closed and shops were flooded after the River Wharfe overtopped its banks.Accelerated footage shows water levels rising around Tadcaster Bridge as the approach of Storm Franklin overnight caused heavy rain and flooding in North Yorkshire.There was severe flooding in parts of Northern Ireland, and more than 150 flood warnings are in place across the north of England, with Yorkshire and Manchester the worst-hit areas

This hard-hitting film about young Norwegians struggling with suicidal ideation, addiction, abuse and self-harm is intense, but does it cross a line?This scrappy, rough-around-the-edges documentary from Norway is directed by two friends and began after one of them, Petter Aaberg, attempted to kill himself. It’s a fly-on-the-wall study of Aaberg and four other young Norwegians struggling with their mental health. It is raw and intense, and also troubling in places: Aaberg and Kvamme keep the camera rolling on these vulnerable people in moments of crisis, testing the limits of documentary ethics.One of their subjects is Monica, whose arms are horrifically scarred by self-harm. A sexual abuse survivor, she lives in a constant state of hyper-vigilance. We see her having a panic attack in the street after hearing a car backfire. Monica introduces the directors to Emma, her trans friend who is struggling with the agonisingly long wait for surgery. Another subject is heroin addict Cornelia, who is filmed injecting herself and being rushed to hospital, her umpteenth overdose. I wasn’t convinced that showing moments such as this, honest and hard-hittingly intimate as they are, take us any closer to understanding Monica, Emma or Cordelia. Continue reading...

About 1.4m doses of Nuvaxovid to arrive in country this week, after EU approval in December