Try not to apologise just to soothe the shame and fear, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith – sometimes you have to have the dignity to be dislikedI was, I think, a compulsive liar in my late teens and early 20s. I had, in some ways, a pretty awful adolescence. I was fortunate to meet a young man who was kind, attentive and exactly who I needed at that time. He loved me dearly and I abused that. I lied to him with claims at which, looking back, I’m truly disgusted. I was racked with guilt at the time but I couldn’t seem to control it. I can only think that I was desperate for attention. The lies spread to my friend circle and drew a wedge between my boyfriend and me until we finally, very messily (again, mostly due to my immaturity), broke up.In the nearly 10 years since, I’ve come clean to my friends, apologised and tried to move on. My friends have forgiven me, for which I’m so grateful. I tried to apologise to my ex at the time, and he tried to forgive me, but understandably his trust in me had been broken beyond repair. I look back at that time and feel some pity for my younger self but mostly so much guilt and shame. Continue reading...

UK deaths are up compared to last Wednesday; Novavax asking UK watchdog to approve its Covid jab

Experts called for stronger protections between North and South Islands after news that one case had recently arrived from Auckland

Rishi Sunak reassures Tory MPs that spending enabled by stronger than expected recovery will not be repeated

State department official says ‘we need to make progress soon’ with Russia on increasing number of visas for diplomatsThe US embassy in Moscow could stop performing most functions next year unless there is progress with Russia on increasing the number of visas for diplomats, a US official has warned.The United States earlier this month stopped processing visas in Moscow, and Russians are obliged to travel to the US embassy in Warsaw. Continue reading...

Infectious disease experts suggest deep cleaning Covid-19 exposure sites is ‘unlikely to do anything over and above a good clean with disinfectant’

In Covid-free SA, opening the border means letting the pandemic spread in a ‘controlled entry’

Bill would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crimeItaly’s senate on Wednesday killed off a bill that would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.The 315-member senate voted by 154 to 131 to block the debate on the law, named after the gay centre-left Democratic party (PD) lawmaker and promoter Alessandro Zan and previously approved by the lower house of parliament in the face of months of protests from far right and Catholic groups. Continue reading...

Xavier Bettel admits dissertation ‘should have been done differently’ after investigation uncovers plagiarismLuxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has admitted his university thesis “should have been done differently” after a media investigation concluded that only two of the work’s 56 pages had not been plagiarised.A local news outlet, reporter.lu, said on Wednesday that Bettel had lifted three-quarters of the text, describing it as “an impressive hodgepodge of copied passages that does not meet the customary requirements of academia”. Continue reading...

Warsaw calls European court of justice move blackmail and says penalties ‘not the right road’Poland has been fined €1m (£845,000) a day by the European court of justice for ignoring a ruling that it must suspend its controversial judicial system changes.The inflammatory move, which runs contrary to recent words of caution from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was immediately denounced in Warsaw as “blackmail”. Continue reading...

Analysis: No serious investment in UK’s green future means chancellor is hoping market will deliverIn failing to make any serious new government investment in the UK’s green future, Rishi Sunak has chosen to gamble that the market will deliver instead. That is a very high-stakes bet in the face of a climate emergency.Four days before the UK hosts the crucial Cop26 climate summit, the virtual absence of the climate crisis from Sunak’s budget speech was startling. The most eye-catching announcement was the halving of taxes on domestic flights, which are already far cheaper and more polluting than trains. Continue reading...

Diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights said it’s a matter of ‘dignity and respect’The US has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation – a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who don’t identify as male or female – and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year, the state department said on Wednesday.The US special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, Jessica Stern, called the moves historic and celebratory, saying they brought the government documents in line with the “lived reality” that there is a wider spectrum of human sex characteristics than is reflected in the previous two designations. Continue reading...

Visit to come amid calls for papal apology over church’s role in abuse and deaths of thousands of children in residential schoolsPope Francis has agreed to visit Canada amid growing calls for an apology from the Catholic church over its role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of Indigenous children.The church has faced mounting criticism for resisting the release of all documents related to the residential school system and allegations that it withheld millions in compensation for survivors of those schools. Continue reading...

The move appears to run contrary to the coalition government’s vow to reduce tensions with PalestineA settlement monitor has said that an Israeli committee has approved about 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a day after the Biden administration issued its strongest condemnation yet of the proposed construction.Word of the approval came from Hagit Ofran from the anti-settlement group Peace Now. There was no immediate confirmation from the defence ministry. Continue reading...

PC Adam Zaman, 28, was off duty when alleged rape occurred on Sunday evening, say policeA serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with a rape alleged to have taken place last weekend.The Met said the officer charged was PC Adam Zaman, 28, and the incident was alleged to have taken place on Sunday evening. The force said Zaman was off duty when the alleged rape occurred and was arrested the following day following a complaint to police. Continue reading...

‘It’s a private moment but in a wide open public space. It made me think about how queer Black men struggle to be seen for our true selves’In 2018, I was visiting my cousin in Dallas when I remembered that a friend from Portland had moved there. I hadn’t seen him in a while and heard he had a new partner, so I asked if he wanted to catch up. The minute I saw him and his boyfriend, I wanted to photograph them. They were both wearing similar clothes, and something about the matching colour palette made them feel like a pair. We took a walk through Como Park, where I spotted this tree. I asked them to stand behind it and embrace each other, with their faces obscured.What struck me was the interplay of intimacy and anonymity. It’s this tender moment, slightly hidden. We can see that it’s an embrace, but we can’t see who it is. It’s a private moment but in a wide open public space. It made me think about how they – and I – as queer Black men, struggle to be seen for our true selves in different spaces. Continue reading...

PM’s move during budget speech signals shift in Covid stance as most Tory frontbenchers follow suit

State operator Renfe says Channel tunnel service competing with Eurostar can be ‘viable and profitable’Spain’s state rail company, Renfe, has announced initial plans to compete with Eurostar by operating a high-speed Channel tunnel line to shuttle travellers between Paris and London.Renfe said studies had shown that the Eurotunnel route, which opened in 1994, could be profitable and workable over the coming years. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak is delivering his budget – here are the main points, with political analysis Continue reading...

Simon Clarke says condition ‘prevents me being comfortable in some open spaces’

Exclusive: positivity rate of 0.2% for tests processed by Immensa in Wolverhampton contrasts with national rate of about 5-8%

A good squash is your best bet for this substantial seasonal soup, so forget those grown-for-looks-not-flavour orange pumpkinsIt’s that time of year when the cookery writer’s thoughts turn, somewhat reluctantly, to pumpkins. Reluctantly because there’s only one reason an editor suggests a pumpkin recipe in October, and that’s a well-meaning, but ultimately doomed attempt to help readers “make the most” of their Halloween jack o’lanterns.Unfortunately, as I discovered early in life with an almost inedible pumpkin crumble, the varieties that are usually sold for carving are grown for their looks, rather than taste, and have flesh so bland that they should really be classed as ornamental to distinguish them from the ones actually worth eating. The latter, in my opinion, include the crown prince, kabocha, kuri and turban squash, all of which also make handsome decorations. They are common in farm shops, markets and greengrocers (I often find them in Asian and African grocers near me) at this time of year, while if you’re not planning to carve it, butternut squash can be picked up just about anywhere. Look for something heavy for its size, a quality that suggests a dense interior full of flavour, though even if you’re staring despondently at the stringy guts of a cartoon pumpkin, don’t despair – we’ve got this. If the worst comes to the worst, just add more cheese. Continue reading...

Prosecutors say DNA and fingerprints matching neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell were found on the carA man has described his fear after coming face to face with a group of alleged neo-Nazis on a Victorian mountain.Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant were allegedly among a group who confronted several hikers in the Cathedral Ranges state park, north-east of Melbourne, in May this year. Continue reading...

Labor derides government’s proclaimed technology-driven plan as a ‘steaming pile of nothingness’

Julia Pemberton was terrorised for 14 months by her husband before he shot her and their son dead. In the 18 years since, her brother has devoted his life to preventing similar crimes and supporting other familiesThe first time Frank Mullane’s sister Julia confided that her marriage was unhappy, that her husband of 23 years was controlling and abusive, and that she intended to ask for a divorce, Mullane responded in what he now calls “a John Wayne kind of way”. “I asked: ‘When can I give him a thump?’” he recalls. “My life is completely different now, but at the time I didn’t have a clue. I knew nothing about domestic abuse, but I felt 100% solidarity. I wanted to show I was on her side – the cavalry.”Mullane and Julia were two of eight siblings from a close Irish family. Their parents had come from Cork to London, then Wiltshire, where their father built a house big enough for all of them. As adults, they stayed close. “We were a loving family, always in each other’s houses,” says Mullane. He was unmarried and had remained in Wiltshire as a business consultant for Nationwide. Julia had trained as a nurse before marrying Alan Pemberton, an accountant and businessman. She later retrained as a health visitor. They lived with their two teenage children 25 miles away, near Newbury, in a house they built – large, secluded, set in acres of woodland. Continue reading...

Alonso Ruizpalacios’ film starts off as an addictive cop show, breaks the fourth wall and then rebuilds it in a film bristling with ideas“Cops are like actors – you have to put on an act so people respect you.” The speaker is one of the police officers, or possibly actors playing police officers, in this startlingly clever and yet heartfelt docudrama about the contractual nature of power and authority from Mexican film-maker Alonso Ruizpalacios, who in just five years has established himself as one of the most potent talents in world cinema, with his new wave-style debut Güeros in 2014 and his true-crime heist drama Museum in 2018.Now he gives us what looks at first glance like a conventionally gripping cop drama in chapter-length sections, about a couple of young officers, Teresa (Mónica Del Carmen) and Montoya (Raúl Briones), on the tough streets of Mexico City; they are partners, fall in love, get nicknamed “the love patrol” and then fall foul of the corruption higher up the food chain. Ruizpalacios gives his movie catchy music and bold graphics over the opening credits, making it look like an addictive TV cop show: but he also experimentally makes his characters talk direct to camera in a mockumentary manner and also lip-sync mid-scene to their own voiceover commentary on what’s happening in verbatim cinema style. Continue reading...

Royal commission’s problem gambling recommendations welcomed, but experts question governance regime

Exclusive: Brandon Lewis warns he will soon have ‘no alternative but to take further steps’ to ensure services are providedBrandon Lewis could override the Northern Ireland executive and directly instruct the nation’s health trusts to provide abortion services, warning leaders in a leaked letter that the continued delay is unacceptable conduct in public office.The Northern Ireland secretary wrote to the first minister, Paul Givan, and his deputy, Michelle O’Neill, warning he would soon “have no alternative but to take further steps to ensure that women and girls have access to abortion services as decided by parliament, and to which they have a right”. Continue reading...

At least two people have died after a powerful storm battered Sicily, leaving parts of the Italian island submerged. Streets were flooded and many vehicles were stranded in Catania, and power cuts were reported in the city centre Continue reading...

Canadian-born comedian who rose to fame in the 1950s credited with ‘yanking comedy into the modern age’Tributes have been paid to the trailblazing standup comedian Mort Sahl after his death at the age of 94.The Canadian-born comic was credited with revolutionising American comedy in the 1950s thanks to his acerbic political satire. Continue reading...

Committee votes to support push to hold president responsible for many of Brazil’s more than 600,000 Covid deathsA Brazilian Senate committee recommended that president Jair Bolsonaro face a series of criminal indictments for actions and omissions related to the world’s second highest Covid-19 death toll.The seven-to-four vote on Tuesday was the culmination of a six-month committee investigation of the government’s handling of the pandemic. It formally approved a report calling for prosecutors to try Bolsonaro on charges ranging from charlatanism and inciting crime to misuse of public funds and crimes against humanity, and in doing so hold him responsible for many of Brazil’s more than 600,000 Covid-19 deaths. Continue reading...

Reducing methane emissions is seen as the biggest opportunity for slowing global heating by 2040

Charity says lower income countries handing over billions of dollars in debt is impeding their ability to tackle crisisLower income countries spend five times more on debt than coping with the impact of climate change and reducing carbon emissions, according to a leading anti poverty charity.Figures from Jubilee Debt Campaign show that 34 of the world’s poorest countries are spending $29.4bn (£21.4bn) on debt payments a year compared with $5.4bn (£3.9bn) on measures to reduce the impact of the climate emergency. Continue reading...

The actor has just directed her first film, an adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing. She discusses the family story that inspired her, cultural appropriation and class in HollywoodIt would be easy to assume that Rebecca Hall has never had to fight for anything in her life. Now 39, she made her screen debut at the age of 10 in The Camomile Lawn, the 1992 TV series directed by her father, the British theatre grandee Sir Peter Hall. Her stage debut came a decade later, in his production of Mrs Warren’s Profession. There followed 15 hugely successful years as an actor, working with Steven Spielberg (The BFG), Christopher Nolan (The Prestige), Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and many more. But for more than a decade she has been struggling to build a second career, as the director of a movie that some would say she has no right to make.That movie is Passing, which Hall has adapted herself from the 1929 novel by the Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen. It is an emotionally resonant study of racial identity, seen through the eyes of two Black women, Irene (played by Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), both of whom, to varying extents, “pass” as white. Hall remembers first encountering the book in her early 20s and feeling a rush of inspiration: “I was sat there reading and I could just suddenly start seeing it: their two faces, seeing each other in that tea room, and I had that idea of looking from Irene’s perspective and panning through someone staring at you and then coming back. That was really there, and very potent, in black and white in my head.” Continue reading...

Little has changed in Europe’s largest shantytown since the UN said the lack of electricity ‘violates children’s rights’ in 2020Few parts of Europe’s largest shantytown speak quite as plainly of the past 12 months as Luisa Vargas’s sparse, tidy and dim front room.A thin curtain hangs across a window cut into the wooden wall to admit a little light, the bookshelves bear the sooty scorches of candles, and a wood-burning stove squats near the door, its chimney punching through a damp scab of ceiling. A big TV sits forlorn and powerless, its place usurped by a portable model perched on a child’s chair and powered, in carefully rationed sessions, by a car battery. Continue reading...

Apex predator is not a ‘mindless killer’ and a better understanding of why sharks bite humans could mitigate attacks, Australian researchers say

Harassment is common for women who run for office and female MPs comprise just 9.9% of lower houseMari Yasuda has come to dread checking her social media accounts. While a TV programme has tipped the candidate as “one to watch” in Japan’s general election this month, her anonymous correspondents make no secret of their belief that, as a woman, she should not be standing for parliament at all.“They accuse me of sleeping with powerful men to get ahead or make abusive comments in calls to our office,” says Yasuda, who is contesting a seat in Hyogo prefecture for the opposition Constitutional Democratic party of Japan. “I receive emails from men remarking on my appearance or asking me for a date.” Continue reading...

Attorney says the deal can protect the prince against a lawsuit that claims that he assaulted Virginia Giuffre when she was 17Prince Andrew’s lawyer has asked a New York judge to keep sealed a 2009 legal agreement that he says can protect the prince against a lawsuit’s claims that he sexually assaulted an American woman when she was under 18.The request was made in court papers in Manhattan federal court, where the US district judge Lewis A Kaplan is presiding over an August lawsuit filed on behalf of Virginia Giuffre. The lawsuit said the prince abused her on multiple occasions in 2001 when she was 17 and a minor under US law. Continue reading...

Santa Fe county district attorney tells New York Times weapon Alec Baldwin fired was ‘legit’ antique gunCriminal charges have not been ruled out in the fatal accidental shooting by Alec Baldwin on the Rust film set, the local district attorney handling the case has said in an interview.Speaking with the New York Times on Tuesday, the Santa Fe county district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, also said it was incorrect to refer to the firearm used in the incident as a “prop gun”, as media reports have. Continue reading...

Members of JCVI say focus on those who have not had any jabs must take precedence over efforts to increase booster uptake

Chancellor to strike upbeat tone despite cost-of-living crisis, with spending pledges worth billionsRishi Sunak will use his budget to insist the UK is entering an economic “age of optimism” despite a looming cost-of-living crisis, after making a deluge of promises to spend billions more on health, transport and skills.In an attempt to strike an upbeat tone during his second budget on Wednesday, the chancellor will say his aim is to create a “new economy post-Covid”. Continue reading...

When Mikel Arteta scanned a well-stocked substitutes’ bench for potential matchwinners, Calum Chambers’ face would not have leapt out. So it was a turnup for the books that his defender, who had not kicked a competitive ball in anger for two months and has barely appeared in a matchday squad since, breached Leeds within seconds of coming on and sparked an ultimately straightforward win. Chambers just about beat Illan Meslier with his first touch and Arsenal’s progression to the quarter-finals was in little doubt thereafter.Chambers had only been deployed because Ben White felt unable to continue after feeling unwell. His intervention was the cue for Arsenal to take complete control of a previously sterile game and their second goal was a reminder of another talent whose career sits at a crossroads. Eddie Nketiah’s only previous football this season had come in the third round of this competition, against AFC Wimbledon; he scored in that game and squeezed in another here, although the path to salvaging a long-term future in north London still appears rocky for a player who needs regular starts at 22. Continue reading...

Three former senior officers agree errors in search for missing women were due to biased policingThree former police chiefs have said errors made in the search for two missing sisters was the result of bias, as the murdered women’s mother dismissed as “hollow” an apology for the blunders.The mother of Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, found murdered in June 2020 in a London park, said her daughters’ friends and family were left to search themselves after the Metropolitan police failed to do so. Continue reading...

Zoe Alexander, whose brother Nick died in 13 November 2015 attacks, testifies at trial of alleged terroristsThe sister of the only Briton killed in the Paris terror attacks has told 14 people on trial in Paris over the bloodshed that while she and other victims’ families “deplore what you did, we don’t hate you”.Nick Alexander was killed when gunmen stormed the Bataclan theatre in Paris during a rock concert as part of a series of coordinated attacks across the French capital ordered by the Islamic State group. Continue reading...

Analysis: leaders of other forces are saying trust is down following series of policing disasters in the capitalThe failings of the Metropolitan police are being felt far beyond the capital.“It is playing in our area hundreds of miles away,” said one chief constable from outside London of the almost weekly disasters befalling the Met, which again finds itself with a lot of explaining to do. Continue reading...

Faced with extreme weather, voters in the 1970s responded to a government call to move to drier land. The same spirit of innovation is needed todayWhat should governments – and people – do, confronted by the terrifying force of nature? It is the question of our age. But one answer, found on mainland Europe, serves as a reminder of human ingenuity in the face of adversity. The Netherlands offers perhaps the most astonishing example of government intervention in the 20th century: acting to deal with North Sea surges, which not only cost lives but threatened food production. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee – a large, shallow North Sea inlet – and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water. What has been created since 1972 is a new region to the east of Amsterdam, called Flevoland, out of the sea in the form of two great polders – essentially flat fields of reclaimed marshland which together are about the size of the English county of Dorset.These days Flevoland is a busy place: containing the country’s fastest growing city of Almere, the regional capital of Lelystad, and a vast nature reserve, Oostvaardersplassen. Half a century ago, all were submerged metres below sea level. The country’s youngest province is living proof of how humankind can live with the ever-changing elements. Michel van Hulten, one of Flevoland’s architects and a former Dutch minister, says some of the success of the area is down to the collectivist spirit of the early 1970s when voters instinctively trusted government. He points out that there were no tax incentives or state subsidies for people to move to what were then empty new towns. The public simply answered the government’s call as part of a national mission. The Low Countries remain ideologically and historically close to the UK. The problem is that today’s politics is marked by polarisation rather than solidarity. Continue reading...

Salman Abedi was not stopped and questioned on return to UK from Libya, inquiry hearsA senior MI5 officer has accepted that stopping and questioning the Manchester Arena terrorist, Salman Abedi, when he returned to the UK from Libya could have led police to the bomb.The inquiry being held into the atrocity, which killed 22 concertgoers and injured hundreds of others, was hearing evidence from an intelligence officer given the pseudonym Witness J. Continue reading...

Pentagon says Afghan-based group and al-Qaida have intention to attack US and Taliban’s ability to fight them is ‘to be determined’The US intelligence community has assessed that Islamic State in Afghanistan could have the capability of attacking the United States in as little as six months – and has the intention to do so, a senior Pentagon official has told Congress.Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, also said it was still “to be determined” whether the Taliban – which is an enemy of Islamic State – has the ability to fight Islamic State effectively following the US withdrawal in August. Continue reading...