Liberal senator James Paterson says politicians should heed Asio warning after parliament brawls over national security

Yellow warnings of wind and rain are issued for Sunday, with wet and windy weather expected next weekThousands of homes were left without power on Saturday night, as forecasters predicted gusts of up to 80mph were set to batter again Britain on Sunday.The Energy Networks Association said that about 155,000 customers remained without electricity in the south and east of England and Wales after Storm Eunice, while new yellow weather warnings were announced across the UK. Continue reading...

Police allege the 36-year-old used a circular saw to cut off a 66-year-old man’s leg at an Innisfail park

Talk at this week’s NFU conference will be alive with financial, labour and competition concernsSwapping their pastures for the concrete jungle, hundreds of Britain’s farmers will take off their wellies this week and head to a conference centre in central Birmingham for the annual shindig of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).Nearly 1,500 food producers will meet to discuss the “blueprint for the future” of British farming, against the backdrop of the biggest upheaval in a generation in agriculture, following the UK’s departure from the EU and the pandemic, and amid discussions about future land use in the face of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Police chief says ‘occupation is over’ as he vows to clear out those still demonstrating against Covid mandates and Trudeau governmentCanadian police deployed pepper spray and stun grenades on Saturday in a continuing effort to break up a blockade of trucks and demonstrators that has occupied downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks in a protest against pandemic protocols.Reports indicated that authorities escalated crowd control efforts. Police with rifles reportedly approached protesters and smashed truck windows. Continue reading...

PM to announce end to legal duty to quarantine next week as part of ‘living with Covid’ measures

Oscar-nominated actor speaks of his grief and how it left him struggling to make sense of worldAndrew Garfield has opened up about the grief of losing his mother to pancreatic cancer, saying it left him in “precise agony” and struggling to make sense of the world around him.The actor, 38, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for his role in Netflix biography Tick, Tick… Boom!, started filming just after Lynn Garfield, a teacher from Essex, died in 2019. Continue reading...

The pandemic has made us re-evaluate what we took for granted. How have Australians made sense of the value of work, amidst all this change and chaos? We also hear about the digital preservation of a Sydney herbarium, and unlikely discoveries from Alexander Downer’s suitcaseYou can read the original articles here:‘Maybe I should just stop and enjoy my life’: how the pandemic is making us rethink work Continue reading...

From Castlepoint to the Mātakitaki river, New Zealanders are in awe of the natural world around them. As part of the my wild place series, Guardian readers pay tribute to a special place in natureI’m not sure where Ōtepoti Dunedin’s Middle Beach ends and St Kilda begins but we park close to the muralled surf club, on the road that was closed for a month in 2021 so a mother sea lion and her pup could have safe passage from the golf course to the beach. We head right, away from the glitz, the groynes, the sand sausages, the coffee shop chic and the actual good surfers at St Clair beach. Continue reading...

Last wishes have gone unfulfilled, families been kept distant – the pandemic has made death a lonely experience. For carers, it’s underlined the value of a good deathRachel Coghlan first witnessed death as a four-year-old when she watched her grandfather collapse and die in front of her. Later, as a physiotherapy student working as a carer in a nursing home, she found a woman dead in her bed. A nurse taught her not to recoil and instead showed her how to bathe and dress the body.Later again, working as a physiotherapist in London, she watched as a man from Sudan struggled to weigh up a diabolical choice between staying in the UK to access treatment, or returning home to his family but with no prospect of healthcare. He chose his family. Continue reading...

While many assume they will be immune after catching Covid, experts say the emergence of Omicron has seen a significant increase in reinfectionWhen Peter Coleman took a rapid antigen test just weeks after recovering from Covid-19, it was partially “for the fun of it”.Peter and his husband first tested positive to the virus on 10 January, during the post-holiday period that saw a spike in cases hit Melbourne and much of Australia. Continue reading...

New rules were expected to be introduced soon but BBC says government likely to drop planThe British government is reportedly considering ditching its pledge to ban fur and foie gras imports after opposition from within the cabinet.The new rules, which were due to be part of the animals abroad bill, were expected to be introduced soon. But, according to the BBC, the government is likely to drop the plans due to objections from several cabinet ministers. Continue reading...

Fighting breaks out a day after France announces a military withdrawal from west African countryEight soldiers and 57 “terrorists” were killed in clashes at a rebel base in northern Mali where rival jihadist groups, including the Islamic State, are active, the Malian army said on Saturday.Friday’s fighting followed an air raid and erupted a day after France and its allies announced their military withdrawal from the African country. Continue reading...

What was a red-hot outlook is cooling rapidly as market saturation coincides with a squeeze on household budgetsThe end of the pandemic-fuelled home entertainment boom that has driven record breaking growth for Netflix and its rivals has revealed an uneasy truth – the streaming revolution has peaked.The market is facing a perfect storm as, after a decade of making easy converts, streaming companies are seeing dramatically slower growth and increasing competition fuelling an unsustainable content war, just as stretched household budgets prompt consumers to start cutting back on entertainment services. Continue reading...

Volunteers are picking leftover produce on farms to reduce waste and help food banks“It’s like a vegetable treasure hunt,” says Jenni Duncan, 54, ankle deep in mud, looking at the rows of cauliflower plants stretching out in front of her as the Cornish drizzle gets heavier by the minute.This field near Hayle in west Cornwall has already been harvested, but not all the produce met supermarket standards and so some was left unpicked. This is where Duncan and her team of volunteers come in, working down the rows, peeling back the leaves of plants that have been left behind, hoping to find small but perfectly formed cauliflowers still tucked deep inside. Continue reading...

Construction crews from mainland China will help build isolation units, Carrie Lam said

Efforts to bring the blaze on the Italian Euroferry Olympia under control hampered by gale-force windsGreek rescue forces were desperately trying to extinguish fires raging for a second day on an Italian cruise liner off the coast of Corfu, as the search for 12 people believed to be missing intensified.Firefighters battled flames leaping from the ferry’s interior as state TV showed images of the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia engulfed in thick, acrid smoke. Efforts to bring the blaze under control were hampered by gale-force winds on Saturday, while intense heat from the ship made it impossible for rescuers to land on it, the broadcaster reported. Continue reading...

US vice-president Kamala Harris warned of ‘significant and unprecedented economic costs’ if Russia invades Ukraine. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning, she said the US and its allies will levy huge economic and financial sanctions on Russia – and allies that aid a Ukrainian invasion – if military action is taken.

Widespread disruption to services continuing in aftermath of worst storm in 32 years that has led to at least four deaths

Joe Biden has said he is ‘convinced’ that Vladimir Putin has ‘made the decision’ to invade Ukraine – an invasion that might come in the next days, based on US intelligence. The US president added it was not too late to reverse that decision: ‘Russia can still choose diplomacy. It is not too late to de-escalate and return the negotiation table.’The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is due to address a security conference in Munich on Saturday, despite US warnings that Russia might exploit his absence to topple him before he returns to Kyiv

Stake factoring is a way of grading customers according to their success and is widespread in the betting industryOn any given Saturday, Rory would spend several hours glued to a screen flickering with hundreds of football and horse racing bets placed by customers of the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.One of multiple insiders from firms including Paddy Power Betfair, Ladbrokes and William Hill who spoke on condition of anonymity, Rory was part of an obscure corner of the gambling industry that exists to maximise profits by clamping down on successful punters. Continue reading...

US warns Russia could exploit Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s absence to topple him before return to KyivThe Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is set to deliver a rallying call to the west to save his country from a Russian invasion when he plans to address a security conference in Munich on Saturday, despite US warnings that Russia might exploit his absence to topple him before he returns to Kyiv.His planned trip comes as Russian separatist force have called for a general mobilisation in the Russia-supporting east of the country. Continue reading...

Prime minister asked by Met to fill in form as part of inquiry into breaches of Covid rules at Downing StreetBoris Johnson has completed and returned the questionnaire he was sent by Scotland Yard, in which he was expected to defend his attendance at alleged parties under investigation.The prime minister was asked by police to fill in the form on Friday 11 February, as part of the “Operation Hillman” investigation into social gatherings in breach of Covid rules between 20 May 2020 and 16 April 2021. Continue reading...

At 82, the Canadian author has seen it all - and her novels predicted most of it. Just don’t presume you know what she thinks, she tells Hadley Freeman‘How are you? You’re named after Ernest Hemingway’s first wife,” Margaret Atwood announces by way of a greeting when we meet on a hotel’s heated patio near her home in Toronto. Atwood, 82, has often been described as a prophet, thanks to her uncanny ability to foresee the future in her books. When Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in January 2021, it looked, terrifyingly, like a scene out of The Handmaid’s Tale, when the government is overthrown and the dystopian land of Gilead is founded. She seemingly predicted the 2008 financial crash in her nonfiction book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, published that year. Atwood has always scoffed at any suggestion of telepathy, pointing out that every atrocity in The Handmaid’s Tale had been carried out by totalitarian regimes in real life, and she “predicted” the crash by noticing the number of adverts offering to help people with their personal debt. But as she stands in front of me, snowflakes glittering around her like stars, the flames of the hotel’s gas heaters leaping on either side of her, dressed all in black save for her little red hat, correctly guessing who I’m named after, she certainly seems to have a touch of magic about her. How did she know about the Hemingway connection?“Because I’m deep into Martha Gellhorn,” she says, launching into a long discussion about the celebrated war correspondent and Hemingway’s third wife. Atwood isn’t writing a book about Gellhorn (yet), but she found a letter from her to the father of her late partner, Graeme Gibson, who died in 2019, and is now a Gellhornologist. After six or so minutes, I wonder if we’ll ever talk about anything else, but Atwood has a regal quality that makes interruption unthinkable. It does not, as I later learn, render argument impossible.I don’t like to favouritise my books. The others would be out to get you: ‘How could you? I spent all this time with you!’ Continue reading...

The duke’s legal battle was blighted by blunders, aggression and the lack of apology, which did not wash in the #MeToo eraThe Duke of York’s legal battle with his accuser Virginia Giuffre, which he settled out of court this week, was characterised by a years-long series of damaging and unnecessary PR blunders, experts have said.His disastrous Newsnight interview, his ducking and diving to frustrate the serving of legal papers, and claims from “friends” that the infamous photograph of him with his arm around Giuffre’s waist was faked, all served to inflict further public opprobrium on the Queen’s second son, it was claimed. Continue reading...

Western Australia premier says he will spend week in hotel quarantine to avoid perceptions he will benefit from timing of border reopening; SA election campaign officially begins. This blog is now closed

Rhys, 34, touring magician, meets Kate, 26, fintech executiveRhys on KateWhat were you hoping for?

Michelle Bachelet reveals she met Latifa in Paris a year after videos aired of the princess claiming she was being held hostageThe daughter of the ruler of Dubai, who had said she was being held hostage in videos aired last year, has assured the UN high commissioner for human rights that she is well during a meeting in Paris.The meeting, which took place on an unspecified date at Princess Latifa’s request, was revealed on Friday – a year after videos were released by British media where she is seen saying she was being held hostage and feared for her life. Continue reading...

Civilians caught up in bloody rivalry between IS and al-Qaida militants in a week when France announced withdrawalAn Islamic State-linked group has killed around 40 civilians caught up in a rivalry between warring jihadist groups in Mali’s conflict-plagued north.There were “at least 40 civilian deaths in three different sites” during a week of bloodshed in the Tessit area near the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger, a civilian official in the area told AFP. Continue reading...

At least 21 vehicles towed as police start breaking up protest camp that has paralysed Canada’s capital for several weeksPolice in Ottawa have begun arresting protesters and towing away vehicles in an effort to break up the so-called “freedom convoy” that has paralysed Canada’s capital for weeks and prompted the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to declare a national emergencyBy Friday evening, at least 100 people had been arrested, mostly on mischief charges, and at least 21 vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of the city’s major streets, as police exercised emergency powers that Trudeau invoked earlier this week. Continue reading...

Russian state media say a blast has occurred in Donetsk amid multiple US warnings of false flag incidents

Archives says it has alerted Department of Justice about former president’s removal of files from White HouseThe US National Archives confirmed on Friday that officials found classified materials in boxes of documents Donald Trump improperly removed from the White House – and that they had alerted the Department of Justice (DoJ).The disclosure is expected to escalate an investigation by the House oversight committee into whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by removing and destroying White House documents. Continue reading...

Trial of police officer accused of murder of 19-year-old Indigenous man expected to run for another fortnight

The largest single attack ever mounted on Australia occurred on 19 February 1942, when Darwin was bombed by Japan. Often called ‘Australia’s Pearl Harbor’, the bombing of the Northern Territory capital by Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft killed more than 230 people and destroyed ships, buildings and infrastructure. Japanese air raids continued until 12 November 1943 Continue reading...

Analysis: warnings of Russian invasion issued in bid to shape the narrative and win information war with KremlinBritish intelligence, so used to operating in the shadows, has been thrust into the spotlight during the Ukraine crisis, cited by Boris Johnson on Wednesday to warn that Russian troop numbers were still increasing or by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, last month to warn of a possible coup in Kyiv.As the crisis has intensified, the warnings have, if anything, become even less subtle. An extraordinary video released on Thursday by the Ministry of Defence, billed in capital letters as an “intelligence update”, included a Dad’s Army-style map showing a possible Russian invasion plan and other assessments aimed at the general public. Continue reading...

Lulu Lakatos stole from Mayfair jeweller by replacing gems with pebbles in UK’s most expensive theft of its kindA woman who stole £4.2m worth of diamonds by swapping them for pebbles has been ordered to pay back less than £250.Lulu Lakatos, 60, is serving a five-and-a-half year jail sentence after she was found guilty of conspiracy to steal in 2021. Continue reading...

Staff allowed ‘limited access’ before Sue Gray inquiry evidence passed to policeDowning Street staff being questioned by police about alleged lockdown breaches will be allowed to view notes on the evidence they gave to the Sue Gray inquiry.Those spoken to as part of the Cabinet Office probe were told they could see the notes with a member of Gray’s team present but would not be allowed to bring a phone into the room, to be accompanied by a lawyer, or to request any changes. Continue reading...

Analysis: Just as Russian armour and helicopters are edging up the border, Russian messaging is also advancing to the brinkThe omens of impending war we were warned about now seem to be lining up like the horsemen of the apocalypse.The field hospitals have been set near the border, blood banks have reportedly been brought in. On the information war front, a dossier of alleged Ukraine war crimes circulated at the UN security council, and a video popped up purporting to show an attempted Ukrainian attack on chlorine tanks in the Donbas. Continue reading...

At the start of the pandemic, New Zealand made headlines for appearing to eliminate homelessness, but the story is more complicatedFranki began living on Auckland’s streets at age 15, shortly after his father died in 2018. He hunted for secret spots to sleep – the backs of buildings and cemeteries. There were times when he was frightened; times when the older street community took him under their wings.He slept rough through New Zealand’s first pandemic lockdown, wandering the quiet roads, struggling to find food. There were few housing options for a teenager – rentals would not accept him, nor many motels. In mid-2020, worried for his health, he walked through the doors of Lifewise, an organisation that supports people into accommodation. Continue reading...

Warnings of imminent assault by Ukrainian forces fuels fears Moscow is seeking to create pretext for invasionThe leaders of pro-Russian proxy states in eastern Ukraine announced a mass evacuation of citizens to Russia on Friday evening, amid fears that Moscow is manufacturing tension in the region to provide a pretext for renewed military intervention in Ukraine.After the evacuation announcement, warning sirens sounded in Donetsk and other cities in the two Moscow-backed statelets, supposedly due to an upcoming Ukrainian military assault on the region. Continue reading...

Pitt says Jolie broke their agreement not to sell their interests in Château Miraval without the other’s consentBrad Pitt has sued his ex-wife Angelina Jolie for selling her stake in a French winery they had bought together – and where they got married – to a Russian businessman.In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Thursday, Pitt said Jolie had broken their agreement not to sell their interests in Château Miraval without the other’s consent by selling her stake to a unit of Stoli Group, a spirits maker controlled by oligarch Yuri Shefler. Continue reading...

Growing evidence shows Gulf state’s friends and enemies are being targeted by NSO Group softwareMohammed al-Tajer was caught off guard when his iPhone pinged last November with a warning that said his phone had been targeted by a nation state.The 55-year-old lawyer from Bahrain had been known among dissidents for his “fearless” defence of opposition leaders and protesters after the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in the tiny Gulf state, when a series of demonstrations and protests were violently suppressed by authorities with the help of Saudi forces. Continue reading...

Netflix’s giddy, knowing adaptation sees the indie game reach its ideal form: a cartoon that has great fun splashing around in the tropes of 1930s animationFew video games in recent years have managed to equal the sledgehammer disappointment of Cuphead. For those of you not in the know, Cuphead was an independent 2017 game that captured gamers’ imagination like little else before.This was almost entirely down to how it looked. An out-and-out love letter to 1930s cartoonists such as Max Fleischer and Grim Natwick – with a main character inspired by a 1936 Japanese propaganda cartoon about an invasion of an evil Mickey Mouse army – Cuphead thrummed with a gloriously authentic Betty Boop feel. The animations were hand-drawn and imperfect. The big-band jazz soundtrack was recorded on analogue. The voices crackled and hissed as if recorded from worn vinyl. No detail was spared, to the extent that the creators had to remortgage their home to pay for it. And people fell for Cuphead hard. After some initial footage was shown as proof of concept, anticipation hit fever pitch and stayed there for three years. Continue reading...

Anis Hemissi shot dead reality TV star’s brother in front of family as part of ‘tit-for-tat gang war’A hitman who murdered a reality television star’s brother in a “tit-for-tat gang war” has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 35 years.The Metropolitan police described the case as one of the most complex murder investigations in recent history. Continue reading...

Musicians today are under steady, sometimes ruinous pressure to be ‘always on’. Acts including Tegan and Sara and While She Sleeps explain their tactics to remain engaged without breaking downThe run-up to an album release is all about teasing and pleasing the fans: thrilling videos, the promise of a fantasy-fulfilling collaboration, the drip-fed unveiling of a musician’s new era. But earlier this month, the British pop star Charli XCX said she was stepping back from Twitter after receiving negative comments from fans about the campaign for her forthcoming album, Crash.“I have been feeling like I can’t do anything right at the moment,” she said. “I’ve noticed lately that a few people seem quite angry at me – for the choices of songs I’ve chosen to release, for the way I’ve decided to roll out my campaign, for the things I need to do to fund what will be the greatest tour I’ve ever done. I’ve been grappling with my mental health the past few months and obviously it makes negativity and criticism harder to handle.” Continue reading...

The debate over rolling news coverage of the Gulf war could be cut and pasted into discussions about TikTok clips from KyivI was at high school during the first Iraq war, when rolling news was a relatively new thing. It was wild to turn on the TV and see a correspondent in a flak jacket, filming the bombing of Baghdad through his hotel window, or standing in front of a chain-link fence by a runway, trying to fill in airtime like it was regular TV. Continue reading...

Scowling, sodden and surrounded by waterfowl, the actor adorns the new Hollywood issue as an icon of … what exactly?The customary brouhaha erupted yesterday after the release of Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood Issue cover photos, the most striking of which depicts an angry Benedict Cumberbatch emerging fully clothed from a hot bubblebath sesh with a bevy of swans.The Hollywood Issue increasingly feels like it belongs to a different era, when fashion magazines and actors’ star power were at their respective heights. These days, the printed press is clinging on for dear life (Entertainment Weekly announced just last week that it will be ceasing its print edition), and in Hollywood no one performer is bigger than a franchise. So the Hollywood Issue, which trades in the nose-to-the-window glamour of movie stars, has a more forlorn quality than it used to. Continue reading...

Latest updates: south Korean case numbers have risen in recent weeks due to Omicron

Legal hearing challenges Home Office decision to prevent duke from paying for police protection when visitingPrince Harry “does not feel safe” when he is visiting the UK, a place that “is, and always will be, his home”, his legal team have told the high court.His desire to return to see family and friends was emphasised on the first day of a legal hearing related to his claim over the Home Office’s decision not to allow him to pay for police protection for himself and his family while in the UK. Continue reading...

Ambika Mod, who plays stressed junior doctor, reacts to criticism that BBC drama disrespects womenIt is the TV drama that has divided its viewers. Hailed by some as a brutally accurate depiction of the realities of working in an NHS maternity unit, This Is Going to Hurt has been denounced by others as misogynistic and insulting to women giving birth.Now the actor who plays an exhausted and stressed female junior doctor in the show has rejected criticism of the BBC series set on an NHS obstetrics and gynaecology ward. Continue reading...