UK also reports 136 further deaths; some people unable to travel after issue with downloading proof of vaccination

The UK star said she felt ready to release her fourth album, out 19 November, after learning ‘a lot of blistering home truths’ in the past three yearsAfter a slow drip-feed of information – the name of her new single, an unprecedented two simultaneous covers of Vogue in the US and the UK – Adele has officially confirmed the release date of her fourth album.30 will arrive on 19 November – as fans had guessed when Taylor Swift pulled her latest release forward a week from 19 November to 12 November, presumably to avoid a clash with another pop titan. Continue reading...

Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of ‘crime of colonial racism’Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws.A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to “finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians”. Continue reading...

Oliver West tells inquest former soldier Spencer Beynon, who later died, charged at him, shoutingA former police officer who fired a Taser at a former soldier with mental health issues who died told an inquest jury he had no choice but to discharge the stun gun because he feared for his own safety and that of bystanders.PC Oliver West, who has since left the police after being convicted of stealing a car battery, said he found Spencer Beynon slumped in a doorway with a serious neck wound but claimed he suddenly got up and charged at him, shouting: “I want to die.” Continue reading...

Report accuses strongman Alexander Lukashenko of interfering in running of sportThe regime of the Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has systematically interfered in the running of the country’s football federation and used the sport as a “pro-government propaganda” instrument, a report has claimed.The report, which is based on testimony by senior referees and professional footballers, was produced by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), an organisation that supports players, coaches, and other professionals in sport facing pressure for speaking out against Lukashenko, the longtime president. Continue reading...

Ex-adviser to PM says flawed Brexit deal was way to ‘whack Corbyn’ and ‘of course’ government can break it

Priti Patel is seeking legal protections for officers who ‘push back’ migrant boatsBorder Force staff who enact Priti Patel’s plans to “ push back” migrant boats in the Channel could be given immunity from conviction if a refugee dies, officials have confirmed.The home secretary is seeking to introduce a provision in the nationality and borders bill that could give officials legal protections in the event that someone drowns. Continue reading...

José Manuel Villarejo is accused of spying on and working to discredit high-profile Spanish figuresA former police inspector accused of spying on and working to discredit some of Spain’s most high-profile politicians and business people has gone on trial to face charges including bribery, forgery, extortion and influence peddling.José Manuel Villarejo, 70, a former officer in Spain’s national police force, was arrested in 2017 and could face a jail term of 109 years if convicted. He is accused of involvement in a network of corrupt politicians, businesspeople, police officers and media figures known as the “sewers of state”. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people in the UK about the economic issues affecting them and what they would like to see in the October budgetRishi Sunak will announce his autumn budget on 27 October, setting out plans to inject £140bn of extra spending into the economy.The chancellor has said he wants to balance funding for public services with “keeping the public finances on a sustainable path”. Some government departments have had their budgets slashed by up to 40% over the past decade. Continue reading...

Pair were taken away by armed men on motorbikes and later found shot dead on edge of townThe murder of two boys for allegedly shoplifting in Colombia has evoked memories of some of the country’s darkest days of armed conflict.The pair, who were 12 and 18, were allegedly trying to rob a clothing store in Tibú, a small town near the Venezuelan border, last Friday when they were apprehended by bystanders who taped their hands together, according to witnesses quoted by local media. Continue reading...

Ministers from Muslim-majority nations to travel to Kabul to discuss ban on girls going to secondary schoolForeign ministers from several Muslim-majority countries are planning to go to Kabul in part to urge the Taliban to recognise that the exclusion of women and girls from education is a distortion of the Islamic faith.The proposal has the support of western diplomats, who recognise that calls from them concerning universal values are going to have less traction with the Taliban than if the request comes from leaders of largely Islamic states. Continue reading...

His betrayal rocked the family, but we got back together. Now our sex life is nonexistent, but we still love each other. What should I do?My husband had an affair about seven years ago, just after we got back together from a two-year separation. We have been married for nearly 25 years. The affair damaged me and our daughters, especially our oldest daughter. It took her a long time and therapy to trust him again. His initial reaction was emotionally brutal and self-righteous. After several months, he became ashamed of what he did and now finds it hard to discuss. I still harbour feelings of mistrust towards him. Our sexual relationship before his affair was almost nonexistent; since the affair, all these years ago, it has been totally nonexistent. We love each other very much and get along extremely well. He would like to have an intimate sexual relationship with me, but I just can’t bring myself around to having sex with him. It doesn’t interest me. I’m at a loss as to what to do.It takes time to rebuild your trust, but it is seven years since he broke it and you are still not sexually reconnected. Perhaps it is time to accept that your marriage has many positive aspects, but that it excludes sex. Perhaps you never had strong desire for him – if so, just accept that. Marriages can take many forms. Since you are still together after two years’ separation plus a traumatic betrayal, there is clearly something that bonds you deeply. Neither of you has to conform to anyone else’s idea of what a marriage should be; you might find it beneficial – and fair – to express this to your husband.Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions: see gu.com/letters-terms.Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading...

Analysis finds natural population fell by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021 – with Covid cited as principal cause

Drug dealing, assaults and thefts from gift shop among more than 200 crimes recorded in year to MarchTwo drug dealers were arrested and 13 people were detained for possession of various drugs on the parliamentary estate in the space of a year, according to Scotland Yard.Those were among more than 200 crimes recorded at the Palace of Westminster by the Metropolitan police in the 12 months to March. While this is fewer than in some recent years, it was at a time when few MPs and staff were even present, due to Covid restrictions. Continue reading...

The geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit atop the UK. Now it sits squarely over ChinaA new Guardian visualisation reveals how the “centre of gravity” of global emissions has moved over the past 200 years.The analysis shows how the geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit directly atop the UK before being pulled westwards by the US and back towards the east by the rise of China.

Constant Covid testing when travelling from the UK to countries such as the Netherlands should soon be a thing of the pastTrips to Europe over October half-term could become easier for British travellers after Brussels said a technical tie-up with the EU ensuring the NHS Covid pass is recognised across over 40 countries would be “going live soon”.In some European countries, such as the Netherlands, tourists from the UK have faced constant Covid tests as the NHS app proving full vaccination status is not recognised at the Dutch border or in its bars, restaurants and museums. Continue reading...

Many returned to a country they had not seen for years, and many are already plotting another escape as gang violence has left Haiti on the brink of civil warWhen Reynold Joseph was deported from the US back to Haiti after five years in South America, he was unprepared for just how bad things had become in his homeland.Outside a ramshackle guesthouse near downtown Port-au-Prince, where he and a dozen other deportees are staying, some goats were grazing on burning piles of rubbish, while drivers honked and cursed in a queue for petrol that snaked round the block. Each night, Joseph’s three-year-old son stirs in the sweltering heat, and bursts of gunfire ring out in the distance. Continue reading...

Drone footage shows lava flows carrying huge boulders from the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma. The advancing rivers of molten rock prompted a lockdown on Monday, as houses in their path were destroyed. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed since the eruption began on 19 September, and 6,000 people have been evacuated from the area

Director Tomás Ó Súilleabháin’s beautifully shot film takes on one man’s battle with the British, but without judgmentIt’s 1847: an Irishman sings a murder ballad about folk hero Colmán Sharkey, a peasant who shot dead his landlord. But the story that emerges in this tough atmospheric drama is that the killing did not go down like that. Set during the potato famine, Arracht is in Gaelic with English subtitles (it was Ireland’s foreign film Oscar entry) and stars Dónall Ó Héalai as Connemara fisherman and farmer Colmán, who brews poteen on the side to trade in the village. His character is unsatisfactorily written, to be honest: too saintly by half, he won’t touch a drop of his own liquor and there are a few too many scenes of him doting on his wife and his baby son.The film opens two years before the ballad, at the beginning of the great famine. Colmán finds his potatoes rotting in the field, afflicted with potato blight. At the same time his Anglo-Irish landlord (Michael McElhatton) is putting up the rates; Colmán decides to pay him a visit to reason with him. Director Tomás Ó Súilleabháin plays out these scenes brilliantly: rather than make the landlord a cruel, easy-to-hate villain, he’s instead monumentally clueless. Colmán warns him that half the village will be in their graves by spring. Nonsense, exclaims the landlord, and in a let-them-eat-cake moment explains that a little hardship will be good for the people and will wean them off their dependency on potato crops. Continue reading...

Anti-corruption watchdog also hears thousands of dollars in stamps used for political purposes bought with public fundsA Labor staffer has told a Victorian anti-corruption hearing he handled “wads of cash” from MPs to pay for party memberships and bought thousands of dollars worth of stamps with public funds that were used for political purposes.Adam Sullivan, who worked in a series of roles for MPs in Labor’s moderate faction, gave evidence on Wednesday at the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) investigation into branch stacking within the Victorian branch of the ALP. Continue reading...

Most people in Australia have been bitten at some point by something poisonous and they don’t know what

Members raised concerns about ‘extreme’ positions taken by individuals involved in Restore TrustThe National Trust has warned of the “damage” it faces from an “ideological campaign” waged against it by self-styled “anti-woke” insurgents whom the charity has accused of seeking to stoke divisions.It was prompted to speak out as members raised concerns about a range of “extreme” positions taken by individuals involved in a group called Restore Trust, which is backing a slate of candidates in elections for the NT’s governing council. Continue reading...

First came K-cinema, then K-pop and K-TV. Now South Korea’s young stars are conquering the world with K-art. But what do their dark visions say about their nation’s psyche – and ours?Ohnim is having a blue period, just like Picasso. Over Zoom from a gallery in Seoul, the Korean rapper Song Min-ho, better known as Mino to K-pop fans but Ohnim in the art world, shows me a painting he finished the previous evening in collaboration with artist Choi Na-ri. It depicts a blue crouched figure, like a depressed version of Rodin’s Thinker. It may be still wet but will soon be shipped to London’s Saatchi Gallery for an art fair that showcases work by three of Korea’s biggest K-pop stars.The meeting of K-pop and K-art is making the art world lick its lips. Businessman David Ciclitira, who set up the StART Art Fair at the Saatchi, says: “K-pop stars have immense reach through their social media. Guys like Mino, Henry Lau and Kang Seung-yoon, whose work will be in the show, have six to seven million followers each on Instagram. In Seoul, fans queue round the block just to see a work of art by any of them. Then they fight each other to buy. I don’t suppose it’ll be quite like that at the Saatchi Gallery, but you never know.” Continue reading...

Antisemitism ‘allowed to flourish’ on platforms whose users are mainly younger people, says researchA new generation of users of “younger” social media platforms such as TikTok are being introduced to antisemitic ideas they would be unlikely to encounter elsewhere, warns a report.The research comes amid warnings that those drawn into conspiracy theories around Covid-19 are at risk of adopting antisemitic views. Continue reading...

Woman and child taken to hospital as 70 firefighters are sent to blaze in BatterseaA woman and child have been taken to hospital after a fire broke out on the 20th floor of a tower block in south-west London.The London fire brigade sent 70 firefighters to Westbridge Road in Battersea shortly after 8pm, as images online showed flames peeling from the top of the block and a dark plume of smoke drifting into the sky. Continue reading...

The statue is a replica of a mysterious carving of an Indigenous figure unearthed in January known as the Young Woman of AmajacA replica of a mysterious pre-Hispanic sculpture of an Indigenous woman has been chosen to replace a statue of Christopher Columbus on Mexico City’s most prominent boulevard.The statue was unearthed in January in the Huasteca region, near Mexico’s Gulf coast. It’s known as the Young Woman of Amajac, after the village where she was found buried in a field. But nobody really knows who the stone sculpture was supposed to depict. Continue reading...

Letter says protest planned for 15 November has ‘the open intention of changing the political system in Cuba’Cuba has denied government opponents permission to stage what they said would be a peaceful march for civil liberties in the capital Havana and a few other provinces on grounds it was part of efforts to overthrow the government, according to a letter handed to organizers.Protests rocked the communist-run country for two days in July, with the biggest anti-government demonstrations in decades resulting in hundreds of arrests, one death and calls for US intervention by some Cuban Americans. Continue reading...

Wednesday: New poll suggests majority favour serious action to address climate crisis. Plus: rock’n’roll photographer Tony Mott’s unseen imagesGood morning. The Coalition is edging towards a net zero emissions target and the climate roadmap makes it way to cabinet today. Australia will make tracks on the moon after signing a deal with Nasa to build a rover. And lockdowns have kept rock’n’roll off the stage but have given time for the music photographer Tony Mott to go through his archives and share some of his best shots and stories.More Australians than ever are worried about the climate crisis and want serious action to address it, according to an annual survey, which found 75% of respondents are concerned. The poll suggests a clear majority – 69% – want the government to put Australia on a path to net zero emissions. Cabinet meets today to consider a new climate roadmap, and Darren Chester has declared there’s “about a 95% chance” the Nationals will line up behind a net zero target because “Barnaby Joyce can count, and most of the room is in favour of credible action”. Continue reading...

Rooftop catwalk show celebrated the city and its ‘unpredictable skies’, said designer Sarah BurtonTwenty years after a young Lee McQueen signed a deal with Gucci and moved his catwalk shows from East End carparks in London to plush Parisian salons, the Alexander McQueen brand marked the world’s shifting back on to its axis by coming home.The first McQueen show in 18 months brought actors Vanessa Kirby, Emilia Clarke and Kosar Ali to a front row of folding chairs on the 11th floor of a Wapping multistorey where the Shard, Gherkin and Walkie-Talkie buildings gave an alfresco catwalk a recognisable London backdrop.

Brexit negotiator insists the EU do exactly what Britain wants in relation to Northern Ireland protocolYou have to hand it to Lord Frost. He sure knows how to lose an audience. Not that the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator had much of one to start with. There were only a few dozen people in the British embassy in Lisbon and under 300 watching on the Cabinet Office live Twitter feed to hear Frost give his keynote speech on the Northern Ireland protocol. How many were still awake by the time he got to the end of his 30-minute confused ramble is anyone’s guess.Then again maybe that was the point. Being dull is what Frost does best. He numbs the senses to distract you from the more obvious weaknesses in his own arguments. As a negotiator his main tactic is to bore you into submission, by hoping you will have forgotten much of what he said by the time you come to sign on the dotted line. The only flaw with this is that sometimes it’s him who nods off and forgets what he’s agreed to. Something that appears to have happened with the Brexit deal he concluded less than a year ago and which he is now desperate to change. Don’t worry. Lord Frost was on hand to clear up the damage caused by Lord Frost. Continue reading...

James Gray mixing up Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid ‘not an isolated incident’ ex-MEP saysBoris Johnson has been urged to drive out a “dinosaur mentality” from the Conservative party amid warnings that an MP mixing up two ministers of Asian heritage was “not an isolated incident”.James Gray confused his Tory colleagues Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid at a charity reception in parliament last month, allegedly saying “they all look the same to me,” it emerged on Tuesday. Continue reading...

A star in rugby union and league, and now a professional boxer, the New Zealander reveals his inner torments and what drives him on“I get pretty emotional talking about it, bro,” Sonny Bill Williams says quietly as he explains how he feels whenever, like now, he reflects on his extraordinary life. Williams has won the World Cup twice with the All Blacks and been a superstar in rugby league, where he lifted two NRL titles in Australia. When he switched codes he won a Super Rugby title and played rugby sevens in the Olympics and became New Zealand’s heavyweight boxing champion.Williams has also overcome low self-esteem, a drinking problem, a wayward life and rediscovered himself in Islam. He is now retired from rugby, having played at the highest level for 16 years, but he speaks out against prejudice while dedicating himself to his new career as a professional boxer. Continue reading...

Australia overall may be at the lower end of OECD vaccination rate tables, but our often derided capital city has gotten the jab done

He’s partied with Queen. Tom Petty had his email. Now one of Australia’s most accomplished rock photographers has been digging through his negativesRock’n’roll photographer Tony Mott has led the kind of life that for the rest of us seems like a surreal dream. Travelling with Paul McCartney. Partying with Queen. He has photographed everyone from Prince to Rihanna to Marianne Faithfull. But when he talks about his work, what’s clear is his unbridled passion and affection for music and its creators, regardless of genre or fame.Rihanna on stage at the Sydney Super Dome, 2008. Continue reading...

Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband in the kitchen of their Somerset bungalowA woman who stabbed her husband to death left a note saying she had “taken so much abuse over the years” and that she accepted “her punishment”, a court has heard.Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband of 24 years, the retired army lieutenant colonel David Jackson, in the kitchen of their bungalow on 13 February, Bristol crown court heard. She admits manslaughter but denies murder.In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

Bishop says church looking into moving urn, amid claims plot was deliberately chosen by extremistsThe church management of a cemetery outside Berlin has said it made a “terrible mistake” by allowing the ashes of a prominent Holocaust denier to be buried in the gravesite of a Jewish-born musicologist.Henry Hafenmayer, a 48-year-old neo-Nazi activist, was laid to rest last Friday at Stahnsdorf South-Western cemetery in Brandenburg in a ceremony that was attended by notorious rightwing extremists including Horst Mahler, the founding member of the Baader-Meinhof group turned neo-Nazi. Continue reading...

Magic FM DJ Emma Wilson says police ‘laughed in her face’ when she reported incident in south LondonA radio DJ has said she believes she was flashed by Wayne Couzens 13 years before he murdered Sarah Everard, but police “laughed in her face” when she reported it.The Magic FM DJ Emma Wilson, known as Emma B, has waived her right to anonymity and claimed that the police officer exposed himself to her in 2008 when she was walking in Greenwich, south-east London with her baby in a pram after dropping her elder child off at school. Continue reading...

Novelist Mark Billingham advises readers to angrily launch a book across the room after 20 non-gripping pages – but almost 40% of people will keep going right to the endName: the 20-page rule.Age: this one’s actually more about page than age. Continue reading...

Mother speaks out after misconduct finding over death of Kelly Hartigan-Burns, who was found unresponsive in a Blackburn police cellThe mother of a vulnerable woman who died after failings by a Lancashire police officer has said a “stray dog” would have received better care.The custody sergeant’s actions amounted to gross misconduct, a misconduct panel ruled. Continue reading...

This gorgeous and moving melodrama finds two women in 1950s Rio under suffocating family expectations – and sees what happens when they are defied‘What do you want from life?” a husband drunkenly yells at his wife in Karim Aïnouz’s gorgeous and very moving melodrama set in 1950s Rio de Janeiro. The man’s wife is Euridice (Julia Stockler) and what she wants is to be a classical pianist. Her husband is angry and hurt: why can’t she just be happy in the kitchen? Adapted from a novel by Martha Batalha, this is the story of Euridice and her sister Guida (Carol Duarte): their inner conflicts and rebellion against the suffocating patriarchy of home.The film beings a few years earlier: Euridice is 18 and applying to study music in Vienna. Her heart is broken when boy-mad Guida runs away with a no-good sailor to Greece, promising to write when she is married. Predictably, she returns with a baby bump and no wedding ring. There’s an appalling homecoming scene when their dad, a baker, violently shoves Guida out of the house; she’s nine months pregnant at the time (and the film never lets us forget that violence can be done to these women at any time of a man’s choosing). Unforgivably, Guida’s dad says that Euridice has left Rio and is living in Vienna. The truth is she’s up the road, married to an insightless oaf. Continue reading...

A single winner would become richer than Adele and prize will be capped at £187m if it rolls over againThe EuroMillions jackpot has reached £184m, making it the largest ever lottery prize in British history.The prize rolled over into Tuesday’s draw when no ticketholders won on Friday. A single winner could now suddenly count themselves richer than the singer Adele – whose net worth is £130m, according to the Sunday Times rich list. Continue reading...

Man told police he was mimicking style of TV series’ suave master criminal, Assane DiopA man told police he was mimicking the style of the suave master thief in the French TV series Lupin when he attempted to rob the bar of a church oratory in northern Italy.Donning a leather jacket, similar to the one worn by the protagonist of the Netflix show, the 21-year-old, who has not been named, said he waited for the church bells to ring so as to muffle the sound of him smashing through the glass door of the oratory’s bar on Saturday night. Continue reading...

Nightmarishness meets nostalgia as Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench star in a scintillating Troubles-era coming-of-age taleThere is a terrific warmth and tenderness to Kenneth Branagh’s elegiac, autobiographical movie about the Belfast of his childhood: spryly written, beautifully acted and shot in a lustrous monochrome, with set pieces, madeleines and epiphanies that feel like a more emollient version of Terence Davies. Some may feel that the film is sentimental or that it does not sufficiently conform to the template of political anger and despair considered appropriate for dramas about Northern Ireland and the Troubles. And yes, there is certainly a spoonful of sugar (or two) in the mix, with some mandatory Van Morrison on the soundtrack. There’s a key climactic scene about how you disarm a gunman in the middle of a riot if you have no gun yourself, which has to be charitably indulged.But this film has such emotional generosity and wit and it tackles a dilemma of the times not often understood: when, and if, to pack up and leave Belfast? Is it an understandable matter of survival or an abandonment of your beloved home town to the extremists? (Full disclosure: my own dad left Belfast for England, though well before the era of this film.) Continue reading...

Landmark judgment will apply to thousands who may otherwise have been sent back to home countriesThousands of victims of trafficking who have been left to languish in the immigration system for years should be granted leave to remain, the high court has said in a landmark ruling.Prior to the ruling, people the UK government accepted were foreign victims of trafficking could be sent back to their home countries, where they might be at risk of being trafficked again by the same criminals. Continue reading...

The writer has refused to sell Hebrew translation rights to her latest novel Beautiful World, Where Are You due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflictSally Rooney has turned down an offer from the Israeli publisher that translated her two previous novels into Hebrew, due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.The Irish author’s second novel Normal People was translated into 46 languages, and it was expected that Beautiful World, Where Are You would reach a similar number. However, Hebrew translation rights have not yet been sold, despite the publisher Modan putting in a bid. Continue reading...

Organisers of exhibition on history of British fascism say parallels can be drawn with current thinkingA surge in Covid-19 conspiracy theories risks boosting antisemitism, hate crime campaigners have warned after the opening of an exhibition shedding light on interwar British fascism and its parallels today.The Wiener Holocaust Library in London is staging the exhibition – focusing on the motivations and propaganda of British fascists and their European peers in the 1920s and 30s – out of concern about the recent growth of far-right ideas and populism in the UK and abroad. Continue reading...

The Hull Fair, one of Europe’s largest travelling fairs, has returned after a break due to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 250 rides and stalls have returned to the city for the annual event which was last postponed during the second world war. The fair began in 1279 and was extended to an 11-day event in 1752. The fair runs until 16 October this year Continue reading...

An executive assistant in Adem Somyurek’s office tells commission she was told to work on ALP factional activities instead of minister’s portfolios