Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings into the former premier’s dealings with Daryl Maguire continue for a second day. Follow live

Conservative LDP along with coalition partner Komeito retain control of parliament, defying expectationsJapan’s ruling conservative party defied expectations in Sunday’s general election, with a comfortable victory that will boost the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as he attempts to steer the economy out of the coronavirus pandemic.Kishida’s Liberal Democratic party secured 261 seats in the 465-member lower house – the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber Diet – slightly down on its pre-election 276 seats. Continue reading...

Fully vaccinated Australians are allowed to fly in and walk straight into arms of loved ones for first time in 583 days

Sydney airport has been a scene of tearful reunions, with Australians able to fly home and walk straight out of the airport for the first time in 583 days. As fully vaccinated passengers on the first flights from Singapore and Los Angeles walked into the arrivals terminal shortly after 6am, they were greeted by family members. In many cases, they had been separated for years – since before the pandemic began. ‘It’s a little bit scary and exciting,' traveller Ethan Carter said. ‘I’ve come home to see my mum 'cause she's not well. So it's all anxious and excitement and I love her heaps and I can't wait to see her’

Cliches aside, new hires and storylines add inclusivity to the menu in show’s series twoIt has been criticised for trotting out cliches about France and the French and mocked for its idealised portrayal of Paris. But now the Netflix show Emily in Paris will focus on diversity and inclusion for its second series, according to its star, Lily Collins.The actor, who stars as Emily and is also a producer on the series, said she had heard viewers’ concerns about the show, which first hit our screens last year, and efforts had been made to address them.The second series of Emily in Paris is scheduled for release in December. Continue reading...

President makes commitment alongside Germany, France and UK not to repeat Donald Trump’s walkout on agreementJoe Biden has given a pledge that if the US returns to the Iran nuclear agreement, it will only subsequently leave if Tehran clearly breaks the terms of the deal.The US president made the commitment, which addresses one of Iran’s key negotiating demands, in a joint statement issued with Germany, France and the UK. The statement followed a meeting on the margins of the G20 in Rome attended by Biden, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

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Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra. 'I just say when we have respect, you have to be true and you have to behave in line and consistent with this value,' the French president said. When asked whether he thought Morrison had lied to him by not revealing Australia’s dialogue with the UK and US over the acquisition of nuclear submarines, Macron was direct in his response. 'I don’t think, I know'.Video courtesy of Pablo Viñales

Number of injuries not yet known but rail services are suspended in the areaEmergency services have scrambled to respond to a collision of two trains near Salisbury on Sunday night, in a critical incident that left one train carriage derailed.About 50 firefighters from Dorset and Wiltshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight and South Western fire and rescue services are at the scene, which is close to London Road in Salisbury, along with Wiltshire police and Network Rail. Continue reading...

Paul O’Dwyer jumped into Cleddau river in Wales to try to save two women who had got into difficultiesA father of three had died fighting to save two struggling paddleboarders in south-west Wales on Saturday, in an “absolutely heartbreaking” incident that left three people dead and one in a critical condition.Paul O’Dwyer, a former soldier, jumped into the water in an attempt to rescue two women in distress, but was later pronounced dead on the banks of the Cleddau river in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. Continue reading...

Monday: the French president has accused Australia’s prime minister of lying over a submarine contract. Plus: the changing sound of travelGood morning. The French president has accused Australian prime minister Scott Morrison of lying over a major submarine contract. Australia’s carbon neutrality plan is under fire for its over reliance on carbon removal technology. And the Qantas soundtrack is back.Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra. The French president levelled the accusation to journalists on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. Meanwhile, Alok Sharma, president of the Cop26 climate summit, has called on global leaders to “banish ghosts of the past” and step up with new pledges to lower emissions as the world is running out of time to keep warming below 1.5C. As leaders prepared to fly in for the conference in Glasgow, Sharma could not say with certainty that the two-week event would end with a deal to keep that prospect alive. Continue reading...

French president criticises Scott Morrison and expresses scepticism that Aukus pact will deliver on scheduleEmmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra.The French president levelled the accusation in impromptu comments to Australian journalists on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. He said he had a lot of “respect and friendship” for Australia and Australians, but that respect between nations needed to be reciprocated. Continue reading...

Lawyer calls for improved education on issue and says figures are likely to show ‘tip of the iceberg’The number of “honour-based” abuse (HBA) offences recorded by English police forces has soared over the past five years, figures suggest.According to data from the 28 out of 39 constabularies that responded to freedom of information (FoI) requests, the number of HBA cases – including offences such as rape, death threats and assault – rose from 884 in 2016 to 1,599 last year, a rise of 81%. Continue reading...

Vessel allowed to disembark almost 400 people in Aegean port of Kos in ‘unusual and special case’After roaming the high seas for four days as Greece and Turkey haggled over its fate, a cargo ship packed with hundreds of Afghan refugees has been allowed to dock at an Aegean island, with passengers disembarking to apply for asylum.In what Greece’s migration ministry called “an unusual and special case”, the Turkish-flagged vessel was towed into the port of Kos on Sunday. About 375 passengers, the biggest single influx of asylum seekers in years, were taken to a reception centre on the island. Six others were detained for questioning and one woman was admitted to hospital on the island of Karpathos. Continue reading...

Alcohol duty | Sleeper trains | Acronyms | Recycled rolling pins | FacebookSebastian Monblat (Letters, 28 October) needn’t worry about unhealthier livers. The chancellor has cut duty, not pump prices. Can you see anybody reducing a £4 pint by 3p? The reduction in tax will benefit brewers, not customers. More pork barrel than beer barrel.

Congressman hails ‘historic clean-up’ after police raids on farmhouses in Minas GeraisPolice in Brazil have killed 25 suspects as part of what authorities called an unprecedented offensive against heavily armed bank robbers whose brazen heists have brought several major cities to a standstill.The alleged criminals were gunned down in the early hours of Sunday in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais, where police claimed they had been poised to unleash an attack. Continue reading...

Militia and police personnel target protesters in south Khartoum a day after deadly crackdownSudanese anti-coup protesters gathered behind barricades in Khartoum on Sunday, a day after a deadly crackdown on mass rallies.Tens of thousands of people turned out across the country for Saturday’s demonstrations, and at least three people were shot dead and more than 100 people wounded, according to medics. Police denied the killings or using live bullets. Continue reading...

Grattan Institute says subsidies to cut 500m tonnes of CO2 a year is ‘beyond comprehension’

Scott Morrison and Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong met on sidelines of G20

Restaurateur Ado Campeol launched the coffee-flavoured dessert, which means ‘pick me up’, in 1972An Italian restaurateur known as the “father of tiramisù” has died, aged 93. Ado Campeol died at his home in Treviso, in the Veneto region, on Saturday.Although its origins are often disputed and the recipe was never copyrighted by the family, Campeol and his wife, Alba, the owners of the restaurant Alle Beccherie, are widely considered to be the inventors of one of the most famous desserts in the world. Continue reading...

PM says Australia has cut emissions by ‘more than most of the countries sitting around this table’

No 10 says ‘our stance has not changed’ after French officials state Macron and Johnson found path to de-escalating disputeA dispute between the UK and France over post-Brexit fishing rights has escalated significantly after a meeting between Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, with Downing Street rejecting a French claim that the two leaders had agreed a path towards resolving the issue.Johnson and the French president met alone for half an hour on Sunday morning on the fringes of the G20 summit in Rome, where they discussed next week’s Cop26 climate summit, as well as tensions over Northern Ireland and fishing. Continue reading...

Environment minister among those hit by delays, while suspected tornadoes are reported in some areasRail travel routes for delegates heading to Cop26 in Glasgow, including the environment minister Zac Goldsmith, have been blocked, after stormy weather swept through the UK bringing suspected tornadoes to parts of the country.A fallen tree on the west coast mainline between Rugby and Milton Keynes led Avanti West Coast to advise customers against travelling north from London on Sunday. Continue reading...

At Cop26 a plan is urgently needed that will allow Africa to develop as well as adapt to global heating

The Basel-based ‘starchitects’ are at work on highly charged projects in Israel, Hong Kong and the new Cambridge HQ of AstraZeneca. How do they negotiate openness and inclusion?Next month, a mighty new art museum opens in Hong Kong, billed as the most significant in the continent of Asia, whose waterside facade features a vertical digital screen the size of a football pitch. It does this in the middle of the political storm caused by the Chinese government’s national security law, which threatens to crush the museum’s promises of freedom of expression.On the outskirts of Cambridge, England, the finishing touches are being applied to the crystalline new headquarters of AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company whose Covid vaccine has made it a global household name. In Jerusalem, just across the road from the Israeli parliament building, a new national library is under construction, with the stated aim of serving all the communities and faiths of a violently divided country. Continue reading...

Forrest Gump’s wisdom has inspired many of us, but Rob Pope took that a step further, dressing as his hero for the run of his life. But why? And what did he learn?On 15 September 2016, Rob Pope, a chipper veterinarian from Liverpool, sat down in the chair of Fluke’s Barbers in Mobile, Alabama, and readied himself for a haircut. “So what would you like?” the barber asked him. Pope held up a photo of Forrest Gump. It had taken years of planning for Pope to embark on this trip to America, to make it to this barber’s chair. He’d spent countless hours daydreaming about it, building the momentum to go. As his job became ever more miserable – he was working 13-hour days, five days a week – the urge to escape became insurmountable. He quit and, along with his partner and fellow vet, Nadine, headed west.In many ways, the seed for this adventure was sown in 2002. That was the year Pope’s mum, Cathy, died after a cancer diagnosis. Cathy was a medical laboratory scientific officer and a single parent. She raised Pope with grit, determination and heartfelt support of his passion: running. He’d shown promise at the sport since his school days when he took part in the oft-dreaded cross-country and excelled at it. Cathy would take him to his races, which soon became marathons. Marathons after marathons. To Pope she was a best friend, a rock, an inspiration, a support-crew leader. Before she died she asked him to make a promise: “Do one thing in your life that makes a difference.” These words echoed in his mind as he sat in that Alabamabarbershop, awaiting his turn beneath the clippers. Continue reading...

Labour MP who represented his native Dundee for 26 years and campaigned for local and Middle Eastern causesErnie Ross, who has died aged 79, was an energetic and able working-class Labour MP who represented his native Dundee for 26 years. During which he moved from Bennite loyalties to a mainstream position within the parliamentary party.He had a longstanding interest in international as well as domestic issues, and when Labour won in 1997 was delighted to find himself a member of the foreign affairs select committee. However, loyalty, in particular to Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, soon led him into a high-profile episode that resulted in him resigning from the committee and being suspended from the House of Commons. Continue reading...

The former League of Gentlemen star on his love of low-budget British spinechillers, his loathing of Brexit and a slew of projects opening this winterMark Gatiss scans the breakfast menu at an east London restaurant with a famished eye. We’re at the hinge moment between the nightlife of an A-lister, who attended the James Bond premiere the previous evening, and the day job as an actor who, by his own account, could only land a role he had wanted all his life by writing the play himself. “It was a long evening,” he says of No Time to Die. He hadn’t had dinner and was trying to stave off the hunger pangs by sipping water, but not too much, because he couldn’t get out to the loo: “So I’m just really hungry.” He’s like a jovial Eeyore, painting himself into a lugubrious picture of the turnip fields of celebrity, before deciding, with a giggle, that a hearty breakfast of avocado on toast is exactly what’s needed to put everything to rights.This is certainly no time to die of hunger for Gatiss, who has rocketed out of the pandemic as one of British showbusiness’s most sought-after all-rounders. He’s currently putting the finishing touches to his remake of the 1972 children’s film The Amazing Mr Blunden while rehearsing his new adaptation of A Christmas Carol. The latest in a series of half-hour ghost stories, The Mezzotint, is ready to roll into his now customary slot on the Christmas TV schedules. But it’s not all fear and Victorian clothing, he spent part of the lost year in the Outer Hebrides, playing a country doctor in a first world war romance, The Road Dance, and another part messing about in a pedalo on a boating lake with his old League of Gentlemen muckers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith for a new series of their TV comedy Inside No 9. Continue reading...

Premier François Legault’s government prevents Canada’s Guardian Angel asylum seeker program from spreading its wingsThrough each wave of Montreal’s coronavirus outbreaks, Abdul woke at 5am everyday to deliver groceries on shifts ranging from 10 to 14 hours. As an asylum seeker, Abdul had few other options. “I suffered a lot to survive and support my wife and children during this pandemic,” he said.When the pandemic hit Canada, asylum seekers in essential jobs were disproportionately affected. Many fell ill and died when Montreal became the center of the first two Covid-19 waves. In response to public outrage, Canada’s federal and provincial governments announced a national program (dubbed Guardian Angels) to give asylum seekers a path to permanent residence. Continue reading...

Police say man and two women got into difficulties on River Cleddau in south-west WalesThree paddleboarders have died in south-west Wales after getting into difficulty on a river.A man and two women died at the scene in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, on Saturday morning. Another is in a critical condition and being treated at the town’s Withybush hospital, according to Dyfed-Powys police. Continue reading...

Conference president, Alok Sharma, says countries must agree on how to tackle crisisAlok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 climate summit, has called on global leaders to “banish ghosts of the past” and step up with new pledges to lower emissions as the world is running out of time to keep warming below 1.5C.As leaders prepared to fly in for the conference in Glasgow, Sharma could not say with certainty that the two-week event would end with a deal to keep that prospect alive. As host nation, the UK is responsible for overseeing the negotiations and trying to extract meaningful pledges from the representatives of almost 200 countries in attendance. Continue reading...

Undercover reporters for ITV documentary find procedure widely available in LondonDozens of clinics, private hospitals and pharmacies are offering controversial hymen repair surgery, an undercover investigation has revealed, as the government moves closer to banning the harmful practice.It has already pledged to outlaw virginity tests – an intrusive and unscientific examination to assess whether the hymen is intact. Continue reading...

Death of 55-year-old attacked in Onda is first such fatality since events resumed following Covid hiatusA man bled to death from his injuries after he was gored at a bull-running festival in eastern Spain, authorities said.It was the first related fatality in the country since such events resumed after Covid-19 curbs were relaxed during the summer. Continue reading...

With more retailers welcoming pets, our reporter ventures out with her puppy Calisto to see if we really are a nation of animal loversIt’s a Saturday morning and I’m crammed into a small changing room, attempting to try on a new pair of trousers. It’s always a struggle with the multiple layers of autumnal clothing, and I’m even more flustered than usual. Because also crammed into the tiny space is a large dog, giving me a quizzical look and clearly wondering if this is the start of a new game. She quickly decides, yes, yes it is.Dog ownership is booming. According to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association, there are 12.5m dogs in the UK this year, with 33% of households having a canine companion, while the Kennel Club is among the charities and organisations that have reported a surge in puppy ownership during the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...

After years of trying, Martha Hayes chose to have a child using an egg donor. It raised many painful questions. But when Maggie finally arrived it turned out she’d brought all her love with herIt’s 7pm on a weeknight when my husband Chris and I open our laptops, pour two glasses of wine and start browsing through profiles of women in their 20s. Attractive, interesting, available women. It’s the spring of 2020, we’ve been living in Los Angeles for a year (having relocated from London for work) and a couple of times a week, this has become our little routine.I get a good feeling about a pretty blonde yoga teacher, then worry that she’s only 5ft tall. I love the idea of someone who works for Nasa, but I’m put off by her distinctive nose. I am swayed by a sense of humour and spirit for adventure; snobby about hobbies, fussy about ailments and firmly rule out anyone who resembles a party-goer on spring break. It’s an uncomfortable, confronting process. Am I really this superficial or judgmental? Continue reading...

1.28 million in UK have coronavirus, but separate figures suggest number of daily infections has declined 14%

Head of Police Federation says forces have a behavioural problem that must be consigned to historyThe head of the organisation representing police officers has said a “canteen culture” of sexism and misogyny in UK police forces has to end in order to win back public trust.John Apter, the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, acknowledged forces in the UK had a problem with behaviour where female officers are subjected to “sexist nicknames” and “derogatory remarks”, adding it needed to be “consigned to the history books”. Continue reading...

EU and UK travel bans fuel boom in travel to Serbia for authorised Covid vaccinations

Slasher fantasy and ghostly magic collide in Edgar Wright’s heady thriller about a fashion student who is mysteriously transported into the life of a 60s nightclub singer“It’s not what you imagine, London,” says Rita Tushingham in this deliciously twisted love letter to Britain’s cinematic pop-culture past. Director and co-writer Edgar Wright, whose CV runs from the rural action-comedy Hot Fuzz to the recent dramatic music doc The Sparks Brothers, has cheekily described Last Night in Soho as “Peeping Tom’s Midnight Garden”, a mashup of seedy Soho nostalgia and melancholy magic. Making superb use of its West End and Fitzrovia locations, and boasting a cast that includes Terence Stamp (cutting a silhouette that weirdly recalls William Hartnell’s Doctor Who) and Diana Rigg in her final role, it’s a head-spinning fable that twists from finger-snapping retro fun to giallo-esque slasher fantasy as it dances through streets paved not with gold but with glitter, grit and splashes of stabby gore.Thomasin McKenzie, who dazzled in Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, is Eloise Turner, a wide-eyed, 60s-obsessed fashion student with a “gift” that leaves her haunted by Don’t Look Now-style visions of her dead mother. Having earned a place at the London College of Fashion, “Ellie” finds herself in a top-floor bedsit from whence she is nightly transported back into the capital’s swinging past through the ghostly mirrored-life of wannabe singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). In her dreams, Ellie (who says the 60s “speak to me”) both watches and becomes Sandie, aiming for the stars but falling to the streets as the meat-hook realities of London life hit home. Is Sandie a figment of Ellie’s overheated imagination – a wish-fulfilment turned into a nightmare - or has she somehow made a genuine connection across generations? Continue reading...

25 questions on literature, film, TV, books and music with a spooky edge – how will you fare?If it is gothic, spooky, scary, haunted or just plain weird, and was in a book, a film, a TV show or some music, you might just be about to get asked about it. How will you fare with these 25 questions about things that go bump in the night? It is just for fun, and there are no prizes, but let us know how you got on – and how you are planning to enjoy this spookiest of evenings – in the comments.The Guardian’s hideously horrible Halloween culture quizIf you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quizmaster’s word is always final, and you wouldn’t want him to put a hex on you. Continue reading...

He’s the reluctant sex symbol who is now partying with the Clintons. But actor Nicholas Braun is only just coming to terms with his life-changing role as Cousin Greg, TV’s favourite antihero in Succession. He reveals how he is learning to embrace his newfound fameNicholas Braun arrived on Long Island by train, and then he took a car to the compound. This was three years ago. Braun had been invited to a weekend-long party at a fancy home owned by friends of the American actor Jeremy Strong, who Braun knew from the set of the Emmy Award-winning television show Succession, in which they both star. At the compound he was patted down by members of the secret service, which startled him at first, and then delighted him. (He later referred to the agents as “my boys”.) As guests flashed around, Braun remembers thinking, “How is it I’ve ended up here, at a party in a locked-down compound that has a federal agency working the door?” And then the Clintons arrived.By this point, Braun had filmed just one series of Succession, the HBO juggernaut, which revolves around and pillories the Roy family, a venomous media dynasty in the mould of the Murdochs. (Perhaps you’ve heard of it.) Braun plays Greg Hirsch, a distant cousin and Roy family satellite who, as the show progresses, finds himself increasingly surrounded by powerful and prestigious people and the mucky opulence in which they operate, and becomes both seduced and confused by his new surroundings, often to comic effect. Continue reading...

Beijing has reacted angrily to the report, which said China was hindering investigations into source of the pandemicBeijing has lashed out against a US intelligence review into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it “political and false” while urging Washington to stop attacking China.The Chinese foreign ministry’s retort came on Sunday, days after the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a fuller version of its findings from a 90-day review ordered by president Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Caitlin Shorricks’s design for a special vest to protect her daughter during cancer treatment is now helping families across the countryCaitlin Shorricks will never forget the agony of seeing her three-month-old baby, Theía, being treated for cancer last year. She was scared to pick up her daughter for fear of accidentally pulling out the tube running into her main jugular vein: “I was totally terrified. If I wanted to hold her, I had to call a nurse to help.”Determined to find a safe way to cuddle her little girl, she teamed up with her aunt Eva Newberry, who used to be a dressmaker, to create a garment for the baby that would keep the line safely tucked away in a pocket. They called it a “Choob Toob’”. Continue reading...

Tariq Zaidi’s powerful image of the overcrowded Chalatenango prison, which housed 1,637 inmates from the feared MS-13 criminal organisationThe British-based photographer Tariq Zaidi took this picture in Chalatenango prison in El Salvador in 2019. At the time, the prison held 1,637 inmates, all of whom were members of the MS-13 gang that has terrorised the country for decades. Zaidi arrived in El Salvador in 2018 and spent eight months negotiating access to the brutal world of MS-13 and its rival, Barrio 18. In the following two years, he visited six maximum security prisons and numerous bloody crime scenes and funeral processions. His aim, he suggests, in his book of the pictures, Sin Salida (No Way Out), was to document the vicious dystopia that parts of El Salvador had become: “When then-President Trump was calling Central American migrant caravans ‘criminals’ and the like, I wanted to explore what kind of life these people were leaving behind.”The motto of MS-13 is “kill, rape, control”. It is estimated to have used violent extortion against 70% of El Salvador’s businesses. After a dozen years in which the murder rate was higher than any country outside a war zone, President Nayib Bukele, who styles himself as “the world’s coolest dictator”, won power in 2019 on a platform of zero tolerance of gang violence. His authoritarian “territorial control plan”, along with an alleged secret pact with MS-13 leaders, filled the country’s jails to more than triple capacity and dramatically cut the official murder rate. Continue reading...

From All My Loving to Your Mother Should Know, the former Beatle illuminates a life spent puzzling how to get from the beginning of a song to its endAt the beginning of this two-volume book, Paul McCartney says that while he has no intention of writing his autobiography and has never kept a diary, it has been his habit throughout his adult life to turn his life experiences into the words of songs, and so here are 154 of them. With that kind of introduction you’d be forgiven for expecting them in chronological order. Had they been so, most of the hits would be in the first book and a lot of people would hardly open the second. Chronological was obviously a non-starter.Alphabetical it is, then, with each initial letter a fresh lottery. F is particularly solid, featuring Fixing a Hole, The Fool on the Hill, For No One and From Me to You. Unsurprisingly, almost everything under I dates from the Beatles’ personal-pronoun period – I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna Be Your Man, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I’m Down, I’ll Follow the Sun and others – while the average reader may be a bit lost in the O section once they get past Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. As much space in this book is devoted to Magneto and Titanium Man as Michelle. This last turns out to have been half-written by a schoolteacher friend, which would guarantee it winding up in court if it were to happen today. Continue reading...

Large numbers linked to previous administration are stranded in Afghanistan, with calls for the UK to broker rapid mass evacuationCalls for the government to speed up the evacuation of gay, lesbian and transgender Afghans intensified on Saturday after the first LGBTQ+ group arrived safely in Britain but left many behind to face an uncertain fate.The group of 29 is “hoped to be the first of many” in the coming months, the Foreign Office said, hours after the Taliban announced LGBTQ+ rights would not be respected. Continue reading...

The new sister channel of climate denialist Fox News isn’t following suit – it’s just avoiding the subject altogetherWhen Fox News Media announced plans for a 24-hour weather channel, the company could hardly have predicted it would debut in a week marked by a bomb cyclone, several tornadoes and severe flooding across the north-east.Yet that’s exactly what happened when Fox Weather launched on Monday last week, to much fanfare from its owners, but to serious trepidation from people concerned that the channel could match the infamous climate change scepticism of its sister channel Fox News. Continue reading...

Footage shared on social media blamed for igniting violence between communities that left seven dead, buildings torched and many living in fearIt was early morning when Achintya Das, a 55-year-old teacher in the city of Cumilla in Bangladesh, was woken by the ringing of his mobile phone. On the other end of the line was a fearful, stricken voice. Come quickly, the local told him, something very grave had happened. A Qur’an had been found in the shrine they had recently erected for the upcoming Hindu festival of Durga Puja. The Islamic holy book had been placed on a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman.Das, a Hindu who organised the festival in Cumilla, felt dread rise up in him at the news of the desecration of Muslim holy scripture in their shrine. “It didn’t even take me a second to understand the gravity of the situation. I rushed there immediately,” he said. Continue reading...

Rescuers performed CPR on four people until paramedics arrived but one could not be savedA person has died and three people are in a critical condition after a fishing boat capsized off the Wollongong coast in New South Wales with eight people aboard.Police say emergency personnel were called to waters off Waniora Point at Bulli, south of Sydney, after reports of a vessel overturning shortly before 10.30am on Sunday. Continue reading...

You could talk about it – and tell the other two that you won’t have secrets that make one of them feel not greatThe question For 18 months I’ve been in a relationship with two other men. They’d been a couple for five years already. We made it work and moved in together. We are all in our early 30s. I have never had a relationship longer than a few weeks before this.The attraction was equally sparkling for both of them at the start but, as time went by, I developed more of a sexual connection with ‘B’, many times being very spontaneous just between the two of us, always with almost a “cheating thrill”. We had threesomes as well. Continue reading...