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After 18 months of remote learning, some students will re-enter classrooms as the capital sees a fall in coronavirus infections

How contagious is the Delta Covid variant? Take charge of this interactive and watch how small changes in isolation or reproduction rates of Covid-19 can affect our battle against it.One important characteristic of viruses and other pathogens is how contagious or infectious they are. One key measure of this is the R0, or basic reproduction number, which indicates how many new cases one infected person generates.

IAEA ‘deeply troubled’ by indications the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon was operatingNorth Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog has said in an annual report.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has had no access to North Korea since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009. The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons programme and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last nuclear test was in 2017. Continue reading...

A celebration of the Jamaican producer and performer who has died aged 85. Perry was often hailed as a genius and was a major influence on Bob Marley. He also pioneered dub and roots reggae styles Continue reading...

US forces have launched a 'defensive' military strike in Kabul against a vehicle carrying 'multiple suicide bombers' from the Islamic State’s local affiliate in Afghanistan who were aiming to attack the airport, American officials have said.There was no immediate word on casualties and few other details have so far emerged about the incident, which may have triggered a second blast in a nearby house.Witnesses reported an explosion near Kabul airport and television footage showed black smoke rising into the sky. Taliban officials confirmed the US account. According to some reports, a child died in the second blast

Follow all the latest on the Covid-19 pandemic from around the world

Police charge Lee Peacock with murdering Sharon Pickles and Clinton Ashmore in WestminsterA man has been charged with the murders of two people who were stabbed to death within hours in central London.Lee Peacock, 49, was charged with the murders of Sharon Pickles and Clinton Ashmore in Westminster, the Metropolitan police said. Continue reading...

Project including UK’s tallest ceramic sculpture is raising profile of town often overlooked by holidaymakersTourists have long tended to bypass the Cornish town of St Austell on their way to the surfing beaches of Cornwall’s north coast or the bays and creeks of the south, while artists have have been drawn by the crystal-clear light of St Ives and Newlyn.But thanks partly to a public art project inspired by its once-great china clay industry, and the impending arrival of a Cornish answer to The Angel of the North, St Austell is enjoying something of a renaissance. Continue reading...

Emergency resolution would call for Taliban support of plan to enable continued air evacuations, says French president• Afghanistan – live updatesFrance and Britain plan to table an emergency UN security council resolution on Monday calling for the Taliban to back a civilian-run safe zone at Kabul airport that would allow the continued air evacuation of those who want to leave the country, the French president has said.“What we are trying to do is to be able to organise targeted humanitarian operations for evacuations that will not take place through the military airport in Kabul,” Emmanuel Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Continue reading...

Thousands of reservations taken for next summer as holidaymakers seek to avoid missing out on propertiesIt is a conundrum that British tourist boards have struggled for decades to solve: how do you persuade holidaymakers to swap sangria in Spain for Blackpool rock?This year, record numbers of Britons opted for domestic holidays amid pandemic-induced clampdowns on foreign travel. Now, despite this August’s temperamental weather, many appear to be planning a holiday in the UK again next summer. Continue reading...

Parc des Ateliers, Arles, France

Whether we’re yam growers, tech wizards or conspiracy theorists, we’re hardwired to play the status game. But success is not always what it seemsLife is a game. To understand this is to understand why the human world can be so maddening, angry and irrational. The behaviour of racists, transphobes, conspiracy theorists, cult members, religious fundamentalists and online mobbers becomes much more explicable when you realise that humans are programmed by evolution to be obsessively interested in status, and that this obsession is powerful enough to overcome the will to achieve equality, truth or the sense of generous compassion for our rivals.We play games for status incessantly and automatically. We do so because it’s a solution our species has come upon to secure our own survival and reproduction. As a tribal animal, our survival has always depended on our being accepted into a supportive community. But once inside any group, we’re rarely content to flop about on its lower rungs. We’re driven to rise within it. Back in the stone age, increased status meant access to better mates, more food and greater safety for ourselves and our offspring. The more status we earned, the greater our capacity to thrive and produce thriving children. So we’re driven to seek connection and rank, to be accepted into groups and win status within them. This is the game of human life. Continue reading...

She risked arrest, torture and jail to fight racism in 1980s South Africa, and her story is being made into a filmAs a white South African, Sue Dobson risked arrest, torture and imprisonment spying for the black nationalist cause during the latter days of the brutal apartheid regime. She was a middle-class woman in her 20s when she joined the African National Congress (ANC) and infiltrated the white minority government – even having a honey-pot affair with a police official to obtain information, with the full support of her husband, a fellow activist. When her cover was blown in 1989, she fled to Britain, where she sought political asylum after threats to her life.Now, for the first time in 30 years, she is ready to talk publicly about her story – that of a “very ordinary” woman who played an extraordinary part in fighting racism. Continue reading...

Correspondence found in archives shows how ‘pushy’ novelist used ‘collusion, networking and back-scratching’ to win literary awardsAs one of America’s foremost novelists, Philip Roth was awarded nearly every literary accolade, including a Pulitzer prize. It might be assumed that his work spoke for itself in securing these plaudits, but previously unpublished letters reveal he was, in fact, a master of self-promotion, networking and mutual back-scratching.Professor Jacques Berlinerblau, who studied the correspondence while writing a book about Roth, was surprised by how pushy the author was and by his wheeler-dealing with friends and colleagues from the worlds of publishing, literary criticism and academia. “It’s something one would never get from reading his highly autobiographical descriptions of the writer’s lonely life,” he said. Continue reading...

Woman in critical condition and two others hospitalised after emergency services called to festival in BarrowA woman was in a critical condition and two others were also injured after an incident involving a ride at a festival in Cumbria.Emergency services were called to the scene in Cavendish Park, Barrow, at 8.30pm on Saturday after two women and one man suffered injuries, Cumbria constabulary said. Continue reading...

NSW prison outbreaks grow; ACT reports 13 new cases and New Zealand 83. This blog is now closed

Three Texas authors expose the myth that the 1836 battle at a San Antonio mission was about freedom. It was about slaveryAs the ancient American struggle over how much truth to tell about the traditional oppression of minorities bubbles over, with arguments over everything from the teaching of Critical Race Theory to the mention of anything gay in the presence of anyone under 18, this engaging new book about the history of the Alamo arrives at the perfect moment.Related: Our Own Worst Enemy review: a caustic diagnosis of America after Trump Continue reading...

The nation’s Delta outbreak continues to grow, with Auckland likely to remain in lockdown for at least another fortnightNew Zealand’s Covid-19 outbreak continues to spread, with 83 cases announced on Sunday – a new daily high for this outbreak.All but one of the new cases were found in Auckland, with the other in Wellington. Continue reading...

Alar Karis is the only candidate on the ballot after current president Kersti Kaljulaid lost favour with lawmakersEstonia is gearing up for an unusual presidential election in parliament. There will be only one candidate in Monday’s vote, a situation unprecedented since the Baltic state regained its independence 30 years ago.President Kersti Kaljulaid’s five-year term expires on 10 October, and lawmakers in the 101-seat Riigikogu parliament must elect a new head of state to replace her in the largely ceremonial post. Continue reading...

The delays and opposition to the long-awaited Harbour Bridge ramp are emblematic of a city still not at peace with cyclistsOne of the world’s most feted pieces of transport infrastructure currently lets down an increasingly popular mode of transport: the bicycle.Currently, the 2,000 cyclists who cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s dedicated cycleway daily must dismount and battle 55 steps on the north side. The number of cyclists struggling on the stairs looks only set to grow: cycling in Sydney’s inner city has doubled in the last two years. Continue reading...

Pressure grows to begin booster jabs for the vulnerable and extend vaccinations to younger teenagers

Switching from waging an insurgency to administering an entire country again is a daunting challenge the group must urgently addressBy Wednesday morning the last US troops will have left Kabul and the day will break on a country entirely controlled by the Taliban, the last shadow of American threat banished.It is still uncertain what this second iteration of the caliphate will look like, but with foreigners finally gone, the shape of the new Afghanistan will come into sharper focus. Continue reading...

Stones post montage of clips from drummer’s almost 60-year career with bandHe thought it would last a year at most, but Charlie Watts’s run as drummer with the Rolling Stones lasted nearly six decades. This weekend surviving band members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood united to bid a public farewell to the man whose rhythms powered their many hits, who died last Tuesday aged 80.After commenting individually on the loss last week, the Stones have released a video tribute featuring key moments of Watts’s career. The two-minute clip, posted on social media, includes an interview in which the drummer, a lorry driver’s son from Wembley, revealed that when he joined the band in 1963, he thought it might last a year. Continue reading...

Many shops plan to open early for the arrival of Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You next monthWhen they were children they lined the streets in their witch hats and capes, keen to pick up the latest Harry Potter title as bookshops opened their doors at midnight. Now they are a little older, the prospect of a tussle with some millennial emotions could see them queuing around the block again on 7 September, as dozens of bookshops plan to open early for the arrival of Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You.In a nationwide promotional push, prompted by signs of big public demand, freshly printed copies of the Irish author’s third novel are to be served to customers with special commemorative merchandise as they enjoy a coffee and pastry. Continue reading...

Chaotic airlift ends after taking around 14,000 people out of Taliban-controlled countryThe final UK evacuation flight purely for Afghan nationals has left Kabul airport, ending an often chaotic process in which about 14,000 people were airlifted out of Afghanistan by British forces in less than two weeks, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.Any further flights to leave Kabul under the UK’s evacuation operation will also have UK diplomatic and military personnel onboard. It is thought any further flights would be able to transport those still needing evacuation, but would now also include personnel travelling back to the UK. Continue reading...

Student and English teacher Mursal Rasa Jamili, 23, was evacuated to the UK from Kabul with her two sistersMursal Rasa Jamili, a 23-year-old final-year university student and English teacher in Kabul, was evacuated to the UK with her two sisters. Here she explains what happened during her last days in Afghanistan.Sunday 22 August Continue reading...

Passenger boat carrying more than 100 people reportedly sank after being hit by two cargo vesselsMore than 20 people have died and about 50 remain missing in Bangladesh after a passenger boat carrying more than 100 people sank in a large pond.The accident occurred in the Bijoynagar area in the Brahmanbaria district on Friday evening, local police official Imranul Islam said. He said rescuers recovered at least 21 bodies by late Friday. Local news reports, quoting the area’s top government administrator, Hayat-Ud-Dola, said about 50 people were missing. Continue reading...

A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Afghanistan to Greece Continue reading...

Greg Epstein, unanimously elected by his fellow university chaplains, says: ‘I want to be a positive force’Harvard University, originally founded with a mission to educate clergymen in order to minister to New England’s early Puritan colonists, has a new chief chaplain. His name is Greg Epstein – and he is an atheist.Epstein, author of Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, has been the university’s humanist chaplain since 2005 before being unanimously elected by his fellow campus chaplains as the university chaplains organization’s new president, the New York Times reported. Continue reading...

Tandeka, 29, content designer, meets Eamon, 31, postgraduate studentWhat were you hoping for?

When her partner left her with a newborn one dark Finnish winter, Anna Härmälä didn’t crumble. Inspired by Fleabag, she turned her pain into raw, funny cartoons“It’s Finnish winter in complete darkness, and it’s raining ice. And then you can’t sleep, and the baby is screaming, and you’re too tired to get up, but if you don’t get up, there is no one else there.” Anna Härmälä is describing February 2015, when her partner walked out on her and their five-week-old baby. In order to remember, she has to inhabit the “brutal darkness” of that time. “There was extreme tiredness, a deep sadness, moments of despair – but also moments of great love and purpose. That first year was a crazy rollercoaster. It was absolutely… ” She pauses, and breathes in, searching for the right word. What is the word for how it feels when your partner has an affair and abandons you with a newborn? How do you explain it? Härmälä, a Finnish art teacher and children’s book author, started drawing comics.The comics are raw and funny and painful, thrusting the reader straight into the moment of crisis: Härmälä, ravaged with tiredness, contemplating the droopiness of her breasts and eyebags; intimate conversations with friends; snapshots of the messy loneliness of life stranded with a newborn. The drawings feel so immediate that it’s easy to believe you are reading the story in real time – yeah right, as if a newly single mother, desperately trying to survive, would be likely to sit down each day and create beautiful narrative art about it. Continue reading...

Researchers say the tiny island in Greenland – roughly 30 metres across – was exposed by shifting pack iceScientists have discovered a new island off the coast of Greenland, which they say is the world’s northernmost point of land and was revealed by shifting pack ice.“It was not our intention to discover a new island,” polar explorer and head of the Arctic station research facility in Greenland, Morten Rasch, said of the find last month. “We just went there to collect samples.” Continue reading...

UK foreign secretary ‘deeply saddened’ by UK deaths; US officials warned over ‘specific’ threats; US military believes there was only one suicide bomber

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, underlined Joe Biden's comments on Thursday's attack on Kabul airport, saying: 'I think he made it clear he doesn't want them to live on planet Earth any more.'Biden’s national security team has warned him that US troops remain under threat of another terrorist attack just 24 hours after the devastating suicide bomb at Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members and at least 90 Afghans.

The Portuguese wanted a new challenge and Manchester City’s reluctance to pay Juventus a fee let in his former clubIt was on Thursday afternoon that Jorge Mendes decided to call Manchester United to see if they may be interested in the offer of a lifetime. After three days of negotiations between the Portuguese super agent and officials from Manchester City and Juventus as he scrambled to find a new home for his most famous client before next week’s transfer deadline, Cristiano Ronaldo’s future was finally settled in a matter of hours.Related: ‘Welcome back’: Manchester United agree €20m deal for Cristiano Ronaldo Continue reading...

Lee Peacock arrested over deaths of Sharon Pickles and Clinton Ashmore in WestminsterA 49-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murders of Sharon Pickles, 45, and Clinton Ashmore, 59, who were found fatally stabbed at two addresses in Westminster last week.The Metropolitan police said he was arrested at a London hospital on Thursday afternoon. Continue reading...

A third of the city’s roughly 60,000 people are locked in their homes in isolation and the streets, supermarkets and cafes are empty

Copper, coffee and beer come together in a cumulative effort to keep pests out of your patchAnyone who has ever had a tree get in the way of a breathtaking view or pending development approval will know the consequence of a copper coin – come on, we’re all aware of this nasty poisoning tactic! But did you know that copper can be used to kill other stuff too, like pesky snails and slugs? Continue reading...

The New Zealand star has a dedicated fanbase – some of whom were thrown by her latest album’s aesthetic shift. How devoted are you? Take our quiz• New to Guardian Australia’s Saturday quiz series? Catch up hereNew Zealand-born pop star Lorde has inspired such fierce devotion since her debut in 2013 that on the very first song of her third album, Solar Power, she asks fans to just, please, let it go: “If you’re looking for a saviour, that’s not me.”Still, it’s not hard to see why the musician born Ella Yelich-O’Connor has sparked such dedication: her music is littered with vivid literary references, and the accompanying visuals run the gamut from ghoulish to romantic to deviously camp. She’s also become one of pop history’s great interview subjects, name-checking writers like Jia Tolentino and Jenny Odell, dissing fellow pop stars, and speaking frankly about her experiences as a young woman in the music industry. Continue reading...

A satellite tag which unexpectedly kept working for a year has followed one whale’s 15,000km journey across three oceansA loud bang shatters the winter calm of Port Ross, in New Zealand’s remote Auckland Islands, and the small inflatable boat is rocked by the swirl of a 40-ton whale being swallowed up by the cold, dark water.When it resurfaces, the team of scientists are happy to see their US$3,200 satellite tag securely fixed to his side. The whale, whom they have nicknamed “Bill”, slips away into the ocean, the tag transmitting his movements. A few days later, researchers watch as he starts heading west towards Australia. Continue reading...

High court judge found in June Kent military accommodation failed to meet minimum standardThe Home Office is planning to use a controversial military barracks in Kent to house asylum seekers for four years longer than originally planned, it has been confirmed.Officials began using the dilapidated Napier barracks near Folkestone in September last year after the site was loaned to the Home Office from the Ministry of Defence. At times more than 400 asylum seekers have been accommodated in dormitories of 14. Continue reading...

UK figures come after separate figures show uptick of cases in England last week; Danish minister says epidemic ‘under control’

Cumbrian resident John McCurrie says the national park is held back by shortages of infrastructure and imagination. And Michael O’Hara says it’s unfair to point the finger at mountain bikers for damage to the fellsRe Michael Reardon’s letter about his fears that “Lycra-clad mountain bikers” are damaging Lake District fells (Letters, 24 August), the Lake District is many things to many people. It’s home, business, a holiday destination and everything in between. It’s also inspiring, twee and exciting. It is a quiet place to reflect on life as much as it is a playground for adrenaline junkies and people exploring their personal boundaries.Folk have a right to voice their dismay at cyclists, 4x4 drivers and even horse riders. People also have a right to complain about 15mph tourist drivers, litter louts and sheep worriers. Similarly, we all have a right to voice opposition to second-home owners, expensive pubs and poor infrastructure. Continue reading...

Head of US central bank had been expected to announce Covid programme would be tapered off

More than a dozen independent media sign open letter calling for halt to ‘foreign agent’ designationsRussia’s leading independent media have appealed to Vladimir Putin and other top government officials to halt a crackdown on journalists under which some of the countries’ top outlets have been declared foreign agents or banned outright over the last year.More than a dozen media, including Meduza, TV Rain and Novaya Gazeta have signed an open letter to the government calling on it to remove individual journalists and their outlets from its blacklists and repeal laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations” altogether. Continue reading...

Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, charged with contaminating or interfering with goods at Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s storesA solicitor accused of using syringes to inject blood into food at three west London supermarkets appeared in court on Friday.Leoaai Elghareeb is charged with contaminating or interfering with goods with intent at three stores – a Tesco Express, Little Waitrose and Sainsbury’s Local – on Fulham Palace Road. Continue reading...

Analysis: Les Républicains face complex battle to find 2022 presidential candidate to rival Macron and Marine Le PenThis week’s declaration by Michel Barnier, the former EU chief negotiator on Brexit, that he aims to run for French president has added to the uncertainty of a crowded field of candidates competing to represent the traditional right in next spring’s election.The rightwing Les Républicains, the party of the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, is facing an increasingly complex battle to identify a 2022 presidential candidate to rival the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen, who, polls currently show, could once again face one another in the final. Continue reading...

Mission: Impossible star’s belongings reportedly missing from his BMW X7 when recovered in SmethwickThe Hollywood actor Tom Cruise’s BMW was stolen while he was filming in Birmingham.The BMW X7 had been used to ferry around the star, who has been in the city filming scenes for the seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible series. Continue reading...

Ask your GP to refer you to a specialist, says Annalisa Barbieri. It’s not surprising you haven’t been able to conquer it on your ownI am a 76-year-old married man and have had intense and ongoing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) since the age of 13.My father was killed in the second world war, just after I was conceived. When I was six, my mother remarried; the marriage soon became unhappy and tense. My mother was a strict disciplinarian and hit me frequently when she felt I had been naughty or cheeky. She often told me off; I don’t recall her showing me much affection or praising me. Continue reading...