Ozy faced questions about its viewership figures and claims that its co-founder impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with Goldman SachsOzy, a digital media startup, is shutting down less than a week after a New York Times column raised questions about the organization’s claims of millions of viewers and readers, while also pointing out a potential case of securities fraud.The story triggered canceled shows, an internal investigation, investor concern and high-level departures at the company. Continue reading...

Drone footage captures the devastation wrought by the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which has been ejecting ash, smoke and lava over the Canary island of La Palma for more than 10 days.Since erupting on 19 September, the volcano has destroyed more than 800 buildings, as well as banana plantations, roads and other infrastructure.About 6,000 people have been evacuated and are yet to return to their houses, a local government spokesperson said.

Threat of Christmas being ruined by driver shortages forces ministers to expand range and duration of visasBoris Johnson’s government has made a dramatic U-turn in an attempt to save Christmas – with a raft of extended emergency visas to help abate labour shortages that have led to empty shelves and petrol station queues.New immigration measures will allow 300 fuel drivers to arrive immediately and stay until the end of March, while 100 army drivers will take to the roads from Monday, the government announced late on Friday. Continue reading...

As Auckland grapples with Delta outbreak, opposition leaders dare to break with Jacinda Ardern on pandemic plan“Things have changed,” Judith Collins declares, sitting in her Beehive government office. New Zealand’s National party leader is fresh off launching her alternative pandemic response plan, marking the first time the main opposition has significantly diverged from prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s largely popular elimination strategy.The arrival of the Delta variant in New Zealand two months ago, causing an outbreak that the government is struggling to stamp out, has shown that elimination is “clearly not working,” Collins says. Continue reading...

Irmgard Furchner, 96, was arrested after failing to turn up at court and absconding from retirement homeA 96-year-old woman who was arrested on Thursday after failing to turn up for the start of her trial in Germany on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of concentration camp prisoners had warned the judge in advance that she would not show up.Irmgard Furchner was discovered about 38 miles from the courtroom after escaping her retirement home in a taxi, which dropped her off at an underground station in the early hours of the morning. She had written to the judge that to “avoid embarrassment” and due to her “advanced age and physical impediments” she would not be attending the trial. Continue reading...

Philip Allott accused of victim-blaming for advising women to be better informed about legalities of being arrestedA police commissioner is facing calls to resign for saying that women “need to be streetwise” about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder.Philip Allott, who oversees North Yorkshire police and the region’s fire service, was accused of victim-blaming after saying women should “just learn a bit about that legal process” in case they are falsely arrested. Continue reading...

Nygard faces sex trafficking and racketeering charges in US, as well as sexual assault and forcible confinement charges in CanadaThe Canadian fashion designer Peter Nygard has consented to extradition to the US, where he faces sex trafficking and racketeering charges, lawyers for the prosecution and defence said at a hearing on Friday.Separately, Toronto police service issued a statement saying it had an arrest warrant for Nygard on six charges of sexual assault and three charges of forcible confinement between 1987 and 2006. Continue reading...

Readers react to the murder of Sarah Everard and the threat of male violence that women faceWhile I welcome calls for the police to be more active in addressing violence against women, it will have little impact on most women’s lives (Sarah Everard murder: Wayne Couzens given whole-life sentence, 30 September). The tragic murder of Sarah Everard is at one end of a very wide spectrum of men’s behaviour towards women.At the other end is my son’s GCSE English syllabus, where in two years, not one book by a female author was studied. How will boys learn that girls are their equals when, in an A-level history course, the only woman mentioned was Elizabeth I? When will pupils be taught how women have been held back – socially, morally, legally? Everything children learn in school tells them men have achieved and women haven’t – but not why. The truth is that men are only superior in physical strength and that ultimately it is the possibility, however slight, of it being used that facilitates gender inequality.

Exclusive: under-fire force places two police officers on restricted duties, while other forces suspend officersTwo Metropolitan police officers allegedly involved in a chat group that included Wayne Couzens that swapped alleged misogynistic and racist messages have been left on duty after being placed under criminal investigation, the Guardian has learned.The two Met officers are said to have been part of a WhatsApp group involving constables from three forces that is under investigation after Couzens’s phone was seized following his arrest for the murder of Sarah Everard in March. Continue reading...

Allegations are among most serious of those filed against ousted leader by Myanmar’s military juntaAung San Suu Kyi has appeared in a closed court to face allegations of corruption, one of the most serious of a number of legal charges filed against the ousted leader by the military junta.In a hearing at the Naypyidaw Council compound, Aung San Suu Kyi was accused of breaching the anti-corruption law in four cases. This includes accepting packets of US bank notes and gold bars in bribes from Yangon’s former chief minister, Phyo Min Thein; renting government land at a discount; and using funds of the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charity founded by Aung San Suu Kyi in the name of her mother, to build a home. Continue reading...

Seven senior officials responsible for ‘delivering lifesaving aid’ told to leave amid de facto blockade of food, medicine and fuelThe Ethiopian government has told seven senior UN officials to leave the country, accusing them of “meddling in internal affairs”.A statement from the foreign ministry said the officials – who include staff from the UN humanitarian agency, the UN human rights office and the children’s agency, Unicef – must leave Ethiopia within 72 hours. Continue reading...

Women interviewed on Poynders Road in Clapham say the case has shattered their trust in the police“It could have been anyone. We would all have done the same thing and got into the car, especially during Covid restrictions,” says Jenny, 33, holding her five-month-old daughter in her arms.On Poynders Road, in Clapham, south London, where Sarah Everard was last seen alive before police officer Wayne Couzens used his Met ID to falsely arrest and kidnap the 33-year-old before murdering her, this sentiment is repeated among female residents. Continue reading...

Lord Frost told triggering article 16 would add to legal uncertainty for traders and damage economyBusiness leaders have warned Lord Frost that triggering article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol would be a “lose-lose” move.As Frost prepares to reiterate his threat to suspend the protocol using article 16 in two appearances at next week’s Conservative party conference, businesses in Northern Ireland have said such a step would add to the legal uncertainty for traders and damage the economy. Continue reading...

Chemical engineer turned alternative bacon producer Benjamina Bollag on the trouble with animal farming, and how lab rashers are madeThere are many complicated words for my diet – flexitarian, reducetarian, carnesparsian (from carne meaning meat, and eating it sparsely, because there is nothing like using Latin to give heritage to something made up online). I’m not alone: a third of Britons have reduced eating meat because of concerns about industrial farming. Soon to launch into this space is “lab-grown meat”, promising to take the slaughter and environmental exploitation out of your steak. But how does it work? And can it deliver? I spoke to Benjamina Bollag, founder of lab-grown bacon producer Higher Steaks.Hi Benjamina! So you’re bringing home the bacon …

Warsaw defies critics to extend state of emergency as it seeks to portray migrants as dangerousConcerns over Poland’s treatment of migrants stranded on its border with Belarus are mounting after Warsaw this week ignored domestic and international criticism to extend a state of emergency and sought to portray them as dangerous deviants.The European commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, met the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński, in Warsaw on Thursday night but won no concessions on the bloc’s request for monitors from the EU’s Frontex border force to be allowed into the zone, despite growing fears for the migrants’ safety after the deaths of at least five people. Continue reading...

Veronica Ryan creates UK’s first permanent artwork dedicated to people affected by the scandalThe first permanent artwork to honour the Windrush generation in the UK has been unveiled in the east London borough of Hackney, as councils across the country kick off the first day of Black History Month.The work, created by the artist Veronica Ryan, is one of two permanent sculptures that symbolise the council’s respect and commitment to the Windrush generation and their legacy and contribution to the area. The second, by Thomas J Price, will be unveiled next spring. Continue reading...

From a wedding ring washed away in the surf to tickets for Leonard Cohen’s first London gig, these are the possessions that refused to give up on their ownersMany years ago, as a twentysomething in Dublin, I had to leave a flat I had been living in quickly, and inadvertently left behind a shelf full of books. When I went back a week later, the landlord had thrown them out. Twenty years on, I returned to Dublin with my daughter and found three of the books in a secondhand shop, with the date and my signature on them.

Will Renwick set to complete three-week, 500-mile journey across Wales – after nearly giving up on day twoHe has survived injury, isolation and an awful lot of drenching, bone-chilling rain, and now Will Renwick is on the point of completing an extraordinary run across Wales, taking in 189 mountain peaks.Unsupported, carrying his tent and everything else on his back, the 31-year-old will have run north to south, covering more than 500 miles, and in the process raised thousands of pounds for the charity Mind Over Mountains, which promotes the benefits of spending time in the great outdoors. Continue reading...

Push will be performed in Boortmeerbeek, where Simon Gronowski fled to safety, nine days before his 90th birthdayThe 90th birthday of Simon Gronowski, who at the age of 11 escaped a train destined for Auschwitz thanks to three Belgian resistance fighters, is being honoured with the staging of an opera inspired by his story near the rail tracks where he fled the Nazis eight decades ago.Sitting alongside Gronowski during Sunday’s performance in Boortmeerbeek, a village north-east of Brussels, will be the sculptor Koenraad Tinel, whose elder brother was the Flemish SS guard who ordered him and his mother, Chana, on to the train on 19 April 1943. Chana did not escape from the transport and was killed in the gas chambers on arrival at the death camp. Continue reading...

After scoring a No 1 in lockdown, the post-punk band’s singer Joe Talbot reflects on writing about car crashes, substance abuse and Rishi Sunak on their new albumTowards the end of Idles’ upcoming fourth album, Crawler, lead singer Joe Talbot comes to a euphoric realisation. “In spite of it all,” the 37-year-old howls, “life is beautiful.”It’s an apt conclusion for a band who have endured personal tragedy and childhood trauma, and in just four years cemented their status as the face of British post-punk. Their debut album, Brutalism, burst forth with Talbot raging about rape culture (“Sexual violence doesn’t start and end with rape / It starts in our books and behind our school gates,” he shouts on fan favourite Mother), NHS funding and white privilege. Its follow-up Joy As an Act of Resistance swiped at toxic masculinity via similarly seething anthems and catapulted its creators to No 5 in the UK album chart. Last year’s Ultra Mono, a more diversified flurry of synths, pianos and hummed vocals, did even better, finding its way to No 1. Continue reading...

Dress in ‘monoclo’, says artist Pascal Anson, and you’ll rethink your relationship with clothes for ever. Jess Cartner-Morley gives it a go

The manager of the Ontario store noticed the carroty crustacean was being ‘picked on’ and took it to the Toronto aquariumAn extremely rare orange lobster was rescued from certain death – and the humiliation of spending its final days in a grocery store tank – after the manager noticed it was being “picked on” by the other lobsters.“Obviously it stood out. It’s not every day you see a lobster that looks like it’s pre-cooked walking around,” said Niki Lundquist, whose husband manages the grocery store in Ontario’s Durham region. Continue reading...

Virginia Raggi hasn’t solved waste issues while far-right candidate advocates restoring fascist saluteElio Perugini can’t remember the last time he had a decent night’s sleep. “It’s a disaster, the noise just doesn’t stop,” he said. “I hardly sleep any more. The worst of it is on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.”Sleepless nights have become the norm for many in Trastevere, a neighbourhood in central Rome once treasured for its charm and old-world feel, but now known for its rowdy nightlife, petty crime, piles of rubbish and graffiti-scarred walls. Continue reading...

Victoria’s premier Daniel Andrews has announced a further easing of restrictions as the state reaches its 80% first-dose vaccination target. Here’s what you need to know about schools, travel, childcare and work

Demonstrators who took part in rally that hastened end of Brazil’s dictatorship hope for similar show of force this weekendNearly 40 years have passed since downtown Rio was overrun with what one awestruck reporter declared “the greatest and most fantastical popular demonstration of all time”.It was 10 April 1984, the twilight of Brazil’s two-decade dictatorship, and more than a million dissenters from across the political spectrum had hit the streets with a deafening and unified call for change. Continue reading...

Victoria’s case numbers are delayed:No clue if this is a good sign or not. Here’s hoping. Continue reading...

Pair aged 44 and 53 bring total number of arrests to nine in relation to the shooting in Derry in 2019Detectives investigating the murder of the journalist Lyra McKee in Derry have arrested two more men.The men, aged 44 and 53, were detained on Friday morning under the Terrorism Act and taken to the serious crime suite at Musgrave police station in Belfast for interview. Continue reading...

Marriage with non-royal Kei Komuro to take place against backdrop of scandal, tabloid intrusion and public disapprovalWhen they announced their unofficial engagement four years ago, they were cast as a perfect match: the young princess and the clean-cut trainee lawyer, for whom she was prepared to sacrifice her imperial status.Now the sound of wedding bells is within earshot, after the Imperial Household Agency announced on Friday that Princess Mako, the niece of Japan’s emperor, would marry her non-royal fiance, Kei Komuro, on 26 October. Continue reading...

NHS app needed to enter nightclubs, large events and for overseas travel, but users complain it does not work

Prime minister announces plans to allow vaccinated passengers into Australia with a pre-flight Covid test and one week of home quarantine

World’s second biggest economy is grappling with power cuts that have affected industrial outputChina’s central government officials have ordered the top state-owned energy companies to secure fuel supplies for winter at all costs as the country battles a power crisis that threatens to hit growth in the world’s second biggest economy.The vice-premier, Han Zheng, has told energy companies to make sure there is enough fuel to keep the country running and made it clear that Beijing would not tolerate blackouts, according to a report by Bloomberg. Continue reading...

People with the condition can face being seen as ‘cursed’ in the east African country, says Martin Senkubuge, whose art aims to make them proud of their skinIt was a confrontation with a female Michael Jackson fan that first drew Martin Senkubuge’s attention to the skin condition vitiligo.Senkubuge, a Ugandan artist, was describing his tattoo of the musician to the woman at an art exhibition in Kampala in 2019, when he accused the pop star of bleaching his skin. Continue reading...

Women in refuges have been sent home to their abusers or to prison since the Taliban takeover. Those in the few shelters still open fear what lies aheadZari was seven years old when her parents died, forcing her to move in with her uncle. But when he died four years later, his two widows beat Zari and forced her to work long hours weaving carpets. During her teenage years, Zari tried to kill herself.After her suicide attempt, Zari, now 28, moved into a shelter for abused women. For the past eight years she has held on to the belief that things would get better. She made friends and learned to sew clothes, eventually teaching others to do the same. Continue reading...

Alex Turner meets some of the amateur detectorists stalking the fields of the UK searching for buried historyIn July 2009, Terry Herbert of the Bloxwich Research and Metal Detecting club picked up a signal with his metal detector; the signal for what we now know to be the Staffordshire hoard. The find of almost 4,600 pieces of gold and silver was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver ever discovered. .Without the army of dedicated hobbyists that stalk the fields of the UK, much of our history would remain secret, buried and forgotten beneath our feet. Since the success of the BBC comedy Detectorists, more people have taken to metal detecting than ever before.Cameron Jones, a young metal detectorist who ‘fell in love’ with detecting after a metal-detecting rally was held on the land of his dad’s farm. Continue reading...

Archie White was a keen teenage artist, but gave it up for five decades as a solicitor. Now he is starting a new student charity and painting furiouslyArchie White says he would like to retire, but I’m not sure I believe him. This summer he made headlines when he graduated with a fine art degree from East Sussex College. He was 96 years and 56 days old – a few months short of setting a new world record for the oldest graduate.Graduation was only the beginning. “I’m pretty busy all the time,” he says. A former solicitor, he still does consultancy work on the side and is “painting furiously to meet the demands of studios”. On top of that, he is in the process of co-founding a charity, GradAid, with East Sussex College.Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

With his final turn as James Bond in No Time to Die filling cinemas, the actor takes questions from readers and fellow actors about the role, from being smacked around his nether regions to getting over his fear of heightsMost movie stars look tiny up close. Action lads especially. You can’t stop thinking: Vin Diesel is dinky! Statham’s a titch! Am I actually taller than Fassbender?Daniel Craig is different. He doesn’t loom, but he is bulky. Stonehenge legs, whacking hands, just right for killing a man or mending a washing machine. Continue reading...

Inquiry finds 21 men accused of sex abuse, including rape, worked for World Health Organization during Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 2018 Ebola crisisSurvivors of sexual abuse by World Health Organization aid workers during the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak in 2018 should receive “substantive” reparations, the co-chair of an independent inquiry into the scandal has said.Julienne Lusenge, a prominent Congolese human rights activist, said it was “essential” that the UN’s global health body drew up a workable plan for reparations to respond to the “real needs” of women and girls who became victims of abuse. Continue reading...

Vera Baird calls for greater resources and urgency after sentencing of Sarah Everard’s killerPolice forces should be compelled to deal with violence against women and girls with the same level of resources, expertise and urgency as terrorism or organised crime, the victims commissioner for England and Wales has said.After Sarah Everard’s killer was given a full-life sentence on Thursday, campaigners said there was increasing frustration and the time for action was now. Continue reading...

Former vice minister of security Sun Lijun accused of extreme ‘political ambition’ and leading a corrupt and extravagant lifeA former senior Chinese official has been accused of a raft of corruption offences, expelled from the Communist party and put on trial, in the latest case in a purge led by leader Xi Jinping.After a 17-month investigation, China’s top anti-corruption bodies announced the case against the former vice minister of state security Sun Lijun had been sent to prosecutors, state media reported. Continue reading...

Fleet of luxury cars, purchased for the 2018 Apec summit in a move that prompted widespread outrage, has been put up for saleA fleet of Maserati cars, bought by the Papua New Guinean government for the 2018 Apec leaders’ summit in a move that prompted widespread outrage, has been put up for discounted sale.Finance minister, John Pundari, admitted the purchase of the luxury vehicles was a “terrible mistake”, according to the Post Courier, as he announced the vehicles will be put on the market for a discount price of K400,000 (AU$158,000). Continue reading...

Frontrunners to succeed president Rodrigo Duterte in May vote include his daughter and Ferdinand Marcos’s son, with boxing star Manny Pacquia also in mixThe Philippines’ election season has kicked off with TV celebrities, political scions and at least one inmate expected to be among thousands of candidates vying for posts from president to town councillor.A week-long registration process launches a typically noisy and deadly seven months of campaigning for more than 18,000 positions – but the raging pandemic and economic misery caused by harsh lockdowns could dampen the party atmosphere. Continue reading...

Irresponsible statements are fuel for those who falsely believe their rights have been taken awayWhen former prime minister John Key referred to New Zealand as a “smug hermit kingdom” in his widely disseminated op-ed, I thought it was pushing it a bit, but not completely off the mark – we closed our borders to outsiders, after all. What I didn’t expect was for him to start calling the government’s response “North Korean”. This isn’t just lazy rhetoric, it’s obviously wrong.This is what North Korea’s been through: it closed its borders at the beginning of 2020, before most of the world put itself into lockdown. It stopped all shipments in and out of the country, including China, which is its largest trading partner and aid donor. Fishing in its surrounding waters and even salt harvesting was halted, for fear Covid may be transmitted that way. Foreign diplomatic staff left on one-way tickets: one group of Russians took a hand-powered rail cart out of the country. Continue reading...

Kim Jong-un appears not to have attended test, which was overseen by a central committee memberNorth Korea has fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile, the official KCNA news agency has reported, in the latest in its recent series of weapons tests.The test on Thursday, conducted by the Academy of Defence Science, a military weapons developer, was aimed at confirming the practical functionality of the missile’s launcher, radar, comprehensive battle command vehicle and combat performance, KCNA said. Continue reading...

Volcano on La Palma has been steadily spewing molten rock into the sea, enlarging the size of the islandLava from the volcano in Spain’s Canary Islands that began cascading into the ocean two days ago has already covered an area bigger than 25 football pitches.By late Thursday, the newly wrought peninsula on La Palma had doubled in size to 20 hectares (50 acres) since the morning, according to the Volcanic Institute of the Canaries (Involcan). Continue reading...

Mali’s military leaders under pressure to pull back from suspected agreement with Wagner GroupThe UK has joined a mounting international campaign of pressure on Mali’s military leaders to step back from a suspected deal with a Russian mercenary company, amid fears that the agreement will further complicate insecurity in the region.

Friday: Age, disadvantage and reduced access are mixing together to create a perfect Covid cocktail. Plus: four children reveal which bird they are voting forGood morning. The disparity in vaccination rates between the poor and wealthy, Indigenous and non-Indigenous has been laid bare. The Australian hospitality industry is trying to lure staff from the UK. And something has to be done about patchy mobile coverage in the bush, as well as the house price boom.Some of Victoria’s lowest socioeconomic areas are still lagging behind on Covid vaccination rates as the wealthiest surge ahead, creating a stark divide. Prof Mark Stoove from the Burnet Institute said age, disadvantage and access were mixing together to create a perfect Covid cocktail. “The weakest part of our response we’ve found constantly to be health literacy, access to testing and vaccines, casualised workforces,” he said. Continue reading...

Last year 15,444 cases of domestic violence were reported but only 250 people were prosecuted and 100 convicted. Victims deserve betterA woman is beaten every 30 seconds in Papua New Guinea, and more than 1.5 million people experience gender-based violence in the country each year.On 3 September in Mt Hagen, one of the country’s largest cities, three men were released from prison after being accused of murdering a 31-year-old woman, Imelda Tupi Tiamanda. One of the men was her husband. Continue reading...

Details of indecent exposure claims emerge as ex-Met officer Wayne Couzens is given whole-life sentencePolice have accepted they may have had enough information to identify Wayne Couzens as a threat to women before he raped and killed Sarah Everard.Couzens was handed a rare whole-life sentence on Thursday, meaning he will spend the rest of his life in jail. The judge said his crimes were as serious as a terrorist atrocity because he abused his powers as a police officer. Continue reading...

The woman at the centre of a human rights claim against police gives her response to the rulingIt is 10 years since I first sat down with a group of eight women to discuss bringing an assault case against the Metropolitan police. We were reeling from the discoveries that men we had loved never existed. I was tricked into a relationship with a man I knew as Mark Stone, who turned out to be a police spy, Mark Kennedy. The Met had sent serving officers into our lives to deceive us into sexual relationships and to spy on our political campaigns.It quickly emerged that those relationships, which had at first felt like personal betrayals, were in fact part of a systematic practice, spanning decades, of police officers deceiving women into sex and targeting leftwing political organisations in order to undermine dissent. Continue reading...