This intimate portrait of genius physicist Stephen Hawking shows the true toll of his physical decline on his family, via revealing interviews with his first wife and childrenThe brief history of Stephen Hawking is one we all know. Diagnosed at the age of 21 with motor neurone disease and given three years to live, he went on to marry his sweetheart Jane, have three children and become – despite increasingly severe disability and many health crises – a groundbreaking physicist and cosmologist. He was also a member of the Royal Society, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge (a seat once held by Newton) and a world-famous author and lionised public figure after writing the bestselling A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018 at the age of 76.You could easily fill a documentary with stories of his genius. What Hawking: Can You Hear Me? (Sky Documentaries) did was take on the trickier task of illuminating the man and examining what it took, from him and all those around this hyper-focused, hyper-competitive mind, to accomplish all that he did. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Victoria’s construction industry shut for two weeks following violent protests. Plus: France seeks to delay EU-Australia trade deal amid Aukus falloutGood morning. Tensions are rising between Australia and the EU amid fallout from the Aukus submarine pact. Violent protests in Melbourne have led to a shut-down of the Victorian construction industry. And if the pandemic has made you look at your style differently, we have tips on how to fix your ill-fitting fashion.Victoria’s construction industry will shut down for two weeks after a protest against mandatory vaccines for workers in the sector became violent. Hundreds of construction workers and their supporters stormed the CFMEU office building and police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to move the crowd. Meanwhile, NSW recorded the lowest daily Covid caseload in more than three weeks, with 935 new cases, but premier Gladys Berejiklian warned that despite the falling infection numbers, hospitalisations and deaths will probably be worse in October. Pfizer report its vaccine has produced strong antibody responses in children aged five to 11. Its use in children has not yet been approved and adults in Australians have been told not to wait for Pfizer jabs due uncertainty over when the 9m doses due in October will arrive. Continue reading...

France seeks EU support to delay deal as punishment after Australia cancelled £48bn submarine contractFrance is seeking to enlist European Union support to delay a planned EU-Australia trade deal, as part of a plan to punish Australia for what it regards as serial deceit and subterfuge by Canberra before it cancelled the contract for 12 attack-class French submarines.The A$90bn (£48bn) submarine contract was the centrepiece of French-Australian cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, but the Australians have instead opted to form a US-UK-Australia pact dubbed Aukus, and build eight nuclear-powered submarines likely to be delivered between 2030 and 2040. Continue reading...

The pandemic has only made worse the sense of isolation felt by boarding students from remote communities

Lawyers say whiteboard image of man hanging was a ‘disrespectful, degrading and hurtful parody’A vulnerable Indigenous inmate who prison officers allegedly depicted hanging from a noose on a prison whiteboard is suing the Australian Capital Territory government, alleging the drawing was a “vile and racist caricature” of “another Indigenous person they wished to see die in custody”.In May 2018, correctional officers at the ACT’s jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, allegedly drew what appeared to be a game of hangman on a staff whiteboard. The man depicted hanging from the noose was an Indigenous inmate who has mental health issues and has previously attempted suicide. Continue reading...

Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager, was subject of a Hollywood film about 1994 genocidePaul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism offences by a court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.The 67-year-old was found guilty on Monday after a seven-month trial and faces a life sentence. Rwandan authorities accused Rusesabagina of being “the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits … operating out of various places in the region and abroad.” He denied all the charges against him. Continue reading...

Readers respond to the new pact between the UK, Australia and the US, and its implicationsThe Aukus pact is not a “new global order” (17 September) but very much an old order; it is colonial gunboats. I do not expect politicians to have read history such as the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, but I do expect them to be aware of history in their own lifetimes. Eton may not teach the failures of empire, but China has been very clear about Taiwan since 1950.When Biden said, “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”, he was committing to another battle in the Pacific. The global dominance of China has been clear for more than 20 years, and yet we are unwillingly signed up to face this new empire?

Man arrested on suspicion of murder after Derbyshire police were called to property in KillamarshTributes have been paid to three children and a woman who are suspected to have been killed at a house near Sheffield at the weekend.A man, 31, was arrested on suspicion of murder after Derbyshire police were called to a property in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, at 7.25am on Sunday. Continue reading...

The Aukus deal has enraged China and humiliated France, when British diplomacy should be concentrated on EuropeThe Aukus defence deal between Britain, the US and Australia grows murkier by the day. Essentially it is the outcome of an industrial dispute over who will build eight submarines for the Australian military. Australia ordered £48bn-worth of diesel-powered ones from France and then changed its mind, reneging on the deal. It now wants nuclear-powered ones from the US and Britain.Crewed submarines are approaching obsolescence, near useless in an age of “transparent” oceans and underwater drones. Like tanks, they drip with cost, inefficiency and a craving to fight outdated wars. But defence contracts have a corporate and political existence that transcends utility. If Australia seriously thinks China is a threat, it might as well have some new gold-plated weapons ready. Continue reading...

Dr Hossam Metwally injected girlfriend with anaesthetic drugs in belief she was possessed by spiritsAn anaesthetist has been given a 14-and-a-half year jail sentence for injecting his partner with drugs during a series of exorcism ceremonies that left her close to death.Dr Hossam Metwally, 61, made dozens of recordings of himself administering fluids through a cannula to Kelly Wilson, who was left with multiple organ failure. Continue reading...

Gay and trans people in Afghanistan already faced stigma, but now even a call from an unknown number sparks fearLaila, a transgender woman in Afghanistan, rubs her eyes to wipe tears away. “I am terrified. It’s like a nightmare. I don’t feel safe even in my room. I’m scared of the Taliban. When I see them I feel they will know who I am and they will come to beat me, kick me or send me to prison.”After the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, Laila is far from an isolated case. Rehmat, a gay man, said: “Our lives are in danger. We are afraid of having mobile phones. I get afraid when I receive calls from unknown numbers, worried that it might be the Taliban.” Continue reading...

A surge of lava has destroyed about 100 homes on Spain’s Canary Islands a day after a volcano erupted, forcing 5,000 people to leave the area. Cumbre Vieja erupted on Sunday, sending vast plumes of thick black smoke into the sky and belching molten lava that oozed down the mountainside on the island of La Palma, one of the most westerly of the Atlantic archipelago off the coast of Morocco

Tourism minister derided for suggesting La Palma volcano could lure visitors to Spanish archipelagoSpain’s tourism minister has been accused of insensitivity after suggesting a devastating and ongoing volcanic eruption on the Canary island of La Palma could be used as an “attraction” to lure visitors to the archipelago.About 5,000 people have been evacuated and dozens of homes destroyed after the eruption in the Cumbre Vieja mountain range, one of the most active volcanic regions in the islands. Continue reading...

State government set to make announcement Monday night after Victoria police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to move crowd outside CFMEU office

Restrictions will be eased from midnight on Tuesday with more businesses allowed to provide click-and-collect services, PM saysAfter nearly five weeks in lockdown Auckland will move out of the highest setting, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said, adding she was confident there was no undetected transmission of the Delta variant in the community.New Zealand recorded 22 new cases of coronavirus in the community – including three cases outside Auckland – on Monday which some had feared could put the brakes on the easing of restrictions. Continue reading...

Research highlights six firms that increased their profits by a total of £16bnCampaigners have issued fresh calls for a windfall tax on companies that prospered during the pandemic, after research highlighted six firms that increased their profits by a total of £16bn.The outsourcing firm Serco and online clothes retailer Asos were among the companies that saw their global profits more than double over the last financial year, while one investment trust, Scottish Mortgage, saw its returns grow to nine times the average of preceding years. Continue reading...

The biggest night in television has seen major wins for Kate Winslet, the stars of The Crown and breakout football comedy Ted Lasso5.04am BSTAnd here was one of the best speeches of the night, courtesy of Debbie Allen:4.48am BSTHere’s a look at Seth Rogen’s viral intro for one of Ted Lasso’s many wins: Continue reading...

£1.1bn project adds nearly two miles of tunnel and two new stations – Nine Elms and Battersea Power StationThe first major addition to the London Underground this century comes into service on Monday, when the Northern line extension opens to carry passengers to new stops at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station.Taking six years of construction and testing, and a longer period again of design and planning, the £1.1bn project – adding nearly two miles of tunnel as well as the two stations – has put the dramatically changing area of south London on the Tube map. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreaks and track the impact of government responses

Poll declares Olaf Scholz of the SPD victor of all three televised debates before next Sunday’s voteThe centre-left frontrunner to replace Angela Merkel emphasised his eagerness to form a government with the Greens in the last TV debate before next Sunday’s German elections, as the ecological party’s candidate came close to ruling out joining a coalition with the outgoing chancellor’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).A snap poll declared Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to have emerged victorious from three out of three televised debates, with more respondents describing him as the winner of Sunday night’s showdown than the CDU’s Armin Laschet or the Green party’s Annalena Baerbock. Continue reading...

Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.11.07pm BSTThanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.9.25pm BSTMore than 100m Covid vaccine doses are due to expire and be “thrown away” unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world’s poorest countries, Gordon Brown has warned.Related: Gordon Brown calls for urgent action to avert ‘Covid vaccine waste disaster’ Continue reading...

Monday: Australian women more likely to drop out of the workforce during the pandemic, figures show. Plus: how to plan a holiday in uncertain timesGood morning. Gender inequality is hitting headlines today. Australian women are more likely to drop out of the workforce during the pandemic, figures show, and there are fewer receiving additional Covid support payments. Women also receive worse medical treatment for heart attacks. And the UK-France defence summit has been cancelled in the Aukus row.A curfew in the 12 greater Sydney hotspots has been lifted as New South Wales hits the 80% single dose vaccination milestone. Starting from today, restrictions will be relaxed in the western Sydney LGAs to equalise them with the rest of the city. Public pools will be able to reopen across the state from Monday 27 September. Continue reading...

More than 100m doses could be discarded by December if global leaders do not share jabs with poorest countries, warns former PMMore than 100m Covid vaccine doses are due to expire and be “thrown away” unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world’s poorest countries, Gordon Brown has warned.The “staggering” number of stockpiled “use now” jabs will be of no use to anyone by December, according to a new report from the research group Airfinity. Continue reading...

When the ‘subscription social network’ OnlyFans announced it would be banning the sexually explicit content that made it a billion-dollar business, sex workers were up in arms – and many observers wondered how the move could make financial sense. Then it had second thoughts. So what does this tech saga tell us about where pornography fits into the future of the internet – and is it just another example of the sex industry treating women as disposable?This episode includes discussion of sex and pornography. It first aired on Today in Focus.OnlyFans bills itself as a wide-ranging ‘subscription social network’ where content creators of any kind can charge their followers to view their output – but in reality its hugely successful business is largely based around sex. That emphasis only grew during the pandemic, with more and more users spending their free time online – and more people wondering about a new source of income. With the company valued at about $1bn (£720m), and celebrities like Cardi B and Bella Thorne signing up, it was hard to see it doing anything other than more of the same. Continue reading...

Popular senator pursues anti-corruption crusade, threatening jail for dishonest officialsThe boxer Manny Pacquiao has said he will run for president of the Philippines next year, after railing against corruption in government and President Rodrigo Duterte’s “cozy” relationship with China.One of the greatest boxers of all time and the only man to hold world titles in eight divisions, Pacquiao accepted the nomination of his political allies during the national assembly of the faction he leads in the ruling PDP-Laban party, days after a rival faction nominated Duterte’s longtime aide, Christopher “Bong” Go, as its presidential candidate. Continue reading...

York Theatre Royal

Gladys Berejiklian has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW and the ACT

Kicking post-Brexit import controls down the road for a second time puts UK goods at a disadvantageIt came as a little surprise to anyone in the UK’s logistics industry or at its ports when the government announced its decision to delay – for the second time in a little over six months – the introduction of post-Brexit import controls on goods arriving in Great Britain from the EU.New checks on food and animal products imported from the continent will now not be brought in until 1 July 2022, a full year after they were originally intended to begin. The introduction of other requirements, including the paperwork that accompanies imports of food and animal products, has also been delayed from 1 October to next year. Continue reading...

Ursula von der Leyen says the union’s vaccination programme is now a success after its stumbling startWe did it,” said Ursula von der Leyen in her annual state of the union address last week. With more than 70% of its adult population now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Europe is, “against all critics, among the world leaders”.Moreover, the Commission president said, the EU had exported half its vaccines: “We delivered more than 700 million doses to the European people, and we delivered more than 700 million doses to the rest of the world. We are the only region to achieve that.” Continue reading...

Analysis by National Crime Agency finds more than 1,700 UK criminal groups involved in drug supplyBritish organised crime groups are collaborating closely with former international rivals like the Italian mafia to import increasingly bigger cocaine shipments into Europe, a senior investigator has revealed.Related: Cocaine, the yuppie drug? Not now, say experts – its lure is crossing all classes Continue reading...

As the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials approaches, Ilse Cohn’s grandson calls for international law to ensure those committing atrocities today face retributionThe man who ordered the murder of my grandmother never stood trial for the crime. Nor did he stand trial for any of the other 137,000 murders he ordered during five short months in 1941.I know who he was. His name was Karl Jäger, and he was the commander of a Nazi execution squad in Lithuania, where my 44-year-old grandmother had been deported from her home town in Germany. He is just one of several hundred thousand men and women who were never brought to justice for the part they played in the Nazi holocaust. It’s estimated that up to a million people were directly or indirectly involved in holocaust atrocities, yet only a tiny fraction – perhaps no more than 1% – were ever prosecuted. Continue reading...

More of us are cooking or eating solo – it’s time to break free from the stigma of dining alone“We call it a crisis of loneliness. In France, it’s a crisis of manners. In China, it’s a crisis of family,” Dr Mukta Das tells me. “Every nation around the world has this idea that eating together is better, and that eating alone is against the norm.” An anthropologist at Soas University of London, Das is fascinated by the shift of eating from a predominantly communal, convivial activity to something we now frequently experience by ourselves.There are 8 million single households in the UK and in 2019 the Wellbeing Index revealed almost a third of British adults are eating alone “most or all of the time”. This shift may well have been exacerbated by lockdown, during which those who lived alone necessarily ate alone – but it was in motion long before, says Das, thanks to the “transformation of our family-oriented culture into something more individualistic”. Continue reading...

A new biography says paternity would have been impossible for the musician because he was sterile due to illness and an accidentBB King was born into poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi and raised on a cotton plantation before becoming a street busker then finding fame and fortune as a guitarist, singer and songwriter. But the “King of the Blues” also had a far from conventional private life, fathering 15 children, many of whom reportedly squabbled over his multimillion-dollar estate after his death in 2015.But they could not have been his biological children because he was sterile due to illness and an accident, a forthcoming biography claims. Continue reading...

In his first interview with western media, Kandahar’s enforcer promises that things will be different from the brutal 1990sMawlawi Mohammad Shebani is officially in charge of policing morals throughout Kandahar, the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan.He is newly appointed head of the provincial office for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, a title which strikes fear into many Afghans old enough to remember its previous incarnation under Taliban rule in the 1990s. Continue reading...

The Tory leader’s reshuffle was ruthless but the challenge is to create a post-Covid recovery and prove ‘levelling up’ and ‘global Britain’ aren’t mere slogansFor ministers who trooped into Downing Street on Wednesday it was hardly the warmest of welcomes. As the promoted, sacked and sidelined came and went, four armed policemen stared grimly through the black gates while anti-government protestors blared out music from a large speaker on the pavement outside.Road to Nowhere was one song that rang out down Whitehall, The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum followed. Nearby, the anti-Brexit activist Steve Bray was in full cry, confronting the new foreign secretary Liz Truss within minutes of her elevation, shouting: “So you are the new minister for pork pies.” Continue reading...

Boxing great’s daughter says new Ken Burns documentary for PBS will show how he coped with fame – and used it for social purposesIn February 1964 Muhammad Ali, then 22-year-old Cassius Clay of Louisville, Kentucky, proclaimed for the first time “I am the greatest” before snatching, from Sonny Liston, the first of his three world heavyweight boxing titles.Related: We need to separate sport and politics. But also recognise they’re inseparable | Kenan Malik Continue reading...

It’s as if you are in some sort of subconscious prison and I want you to escape, says Philippa PerryThe question I’ve been with my husband for 22 years. Ten years ago, I suffered depression. My doctor said it was nothing and dismissed me.My husband showed no interest in me, we barely talked or had sex, I’d try to get his attention with meals or looking nice, and he’d get angry and tell me all was fine and why did I wear my depression like a badge of honour? At times, I felt suicidal. Continue reading...

The German monarch’s imperial ambitions were fuelled by the British colonialist – as the story behind a recently discovered relic revealsIt was discovered, dusty and damaged, on a warehouse shelf.Recorded simply as a “paperweight” in the depot inventory, it was just one small piece among 30,000 personal items salvaged from Kaiser Wilhelm II’s palaces more than a century ago, and sent on to him in a convoy of 64 railway coaches as he abdicated and fled to the Netherlands after Germany’s defeat in the first world war. Continue reading...

The €38m asylum seeker centre on Samos – the first of five – has restaurants and air-conditioning but it’s like a prison, say criticsIt has eight restaurants, seven basketball courts, three playgrounds, a football pitch, special rooms for vulnerable people, and is purportedly eco-friendly.But Greece’s new “closed” migrant camp for 3,000 asylum seekers on Samos is also surrounded by military-grade fencing, watched over by police and located in a remote valley, and has been likened by critics to a jail or a dystopian nightmare. Its message is clear: if Europe-bound asylum seekers reach the country, they are going to be strictly controlled. Continue reading...

The formation of the election committee on Sunday is the first poll to be held under the patriots rule imposed by BeijingHong Kong’s political elite begin selecting a powerful committee on Sunday that will choose nearly half the legislature – and later a new leader – under a new “patriots only” system imposed by Beijing.The first poll under that new system, dubbed “patriots rule Hong Kong”, will take place on Sunday as members of the city’s ruling classes choose a 1,500-seat election committee. Continue reading...

Experts believe works at Yongbyon nuclear facility could allow production of bomb-making material to increase by up to 25%Recent satellite images appear to show North Korea is expanding a uranium enrichment plant at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, with experts saying the move shows an intent to boost the production of bomb materials.The assessment comes after North Korea recently raised tensions with its first missile tests in six months amid long-dormant nuclear disarmament negotiations with the US. Continue reading...

Jean-Pierre Thebault was angry about Aukus as he left Australia on Saturday night, saying: ‘It’s like in a couple, you know, when you commit … you don’t run away’

With its cosy socks, simmering hotpots and scary festivals, autumn is rich in tradition. But should we insist on fetishising a season of rain, fading light and tedious poetry?Depending on your view, autumn has a bad rap, or an easy time of it. Overdue a renaissance or passé to even admit liking at all. As a child, I considered autumn the red-headed stepchild of the calendar. It was the end of summer. It was back to school. It was a period in which blue skies turned white and the sun started showing up less and less, like texts from a friend you’d made on holiday. Then, in a strange move, the government would surgically remove an entire hour of sunlight, presumably at the behest of whatever grisly nest of vampires came up with daylight savings time.So far, so bad. But autumn was also a twilight time of change and spookiness, of crisp air, Halloween and substantially better television programmes. Sure, it’s the time of school uniforms, but it’s also the time of soup and candles and, again, much better television programmes. Continue reading...

As France accuses the US and Australia of ‘lies and duplicity’, new UK foreign secretary faces major diplomatic incident on her first official overseas tripLiz Truss is heading for a furious diplomatic confrontation with France on her first trip abroad as foreign secretary, as anger mounts in Paris over the cancellation of a £48bn nuclear submarine contract.Truss, whose appointment was one of the biggest surprises of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle last Wednesday, will arrive in the US on Sunday before a four-day visit to New York and Washington during which she is aiming to promote the prime minister’s vision of “global Britain” to international leaders. Continue reading...

Cross-party MPs and peers say the response to the two crises has exposed system as inadequateThe rapid fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the response to the Covid-19 pandemic have revealed “serious weaknesses” in the government’s approach to dealing with national security, according to a highly critical cross-party report.MPs and peers found that the two critical events had highlighted the shortcomings of the national security council – a cabinet committee of senior ministers and officials designed to handle major security challenges. The Lords’ and Commons’ joint committee on the national security strategy (JCNSS) said the system had been exposed as inadequate. It warned that national risk management across government is “loose, unstructured, and lacking in central oversight and accountability”. Continue reading...

British boxer claims to have been banned by American Airlines after colleague’s mask ‘not high enough’British boxer Amir Khan has said he was escorted from a flight in the US by police “for no reason”.The 34-year-old, who has also appeared on reality television shows including I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, claimed he had been banned by American Airlines. Continue reading...

French foreign minister makes no attempt to hide anger as former UK ambassador says announcement ‘puts a big rift in Nato alliance’France’s historic decision to recall its ambassadors to the US and Australia is far more than a diplomatic spat, analysts have warned.The move, in protest at Canberra’s surprise decision to cancel an order for French-built submarines and its security pact with Washington and London, will affect France and Europe’s role in Nato and already strained relations with the UK. Continue reading...

OzHarvest says it is distributing five times as many hampers as it was at the start of lockdown

Picture Search owner Derek de Vreught aims to stick around as browsing for DVDs becomes a niche experience