Tuesday: Federal government’s vaccine rollout hits another hurdle. Plus: Australia’s scariest homegrown filmGood morning. Australia’s vaccination program has hit another hurdle and Covid testing labs are “drowning” from record testing turnouts. Thankfully we have the Olympics to add some entertainment amid lockdown uncertainty – including the viral success of one wild Australian swim coach. Stay tuned to Guardian Australia’s live updates throughout the day.One of the federal government’s key vaccine deals has been hit with major delays, with 51m doses of Novavax not expected until 2022. The vaccine was initially touted as a “primary” vaccine, but will now form part of the booster strategy. The company, which has never brought a vaccine to market, has reported supply issues as a major hurdle and has not yet applied to the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for approval. The government is now focusing on securing more Pfizer shots, which will now be made available for supermarket workers in south-west Sydney. NSW will also set up walk-in clinics for AstraZeneca vaccine shots in south-west and western Sydney. Premier Gladys Berejiklian foreshadowed the state’s strict lockdown would continue but with some possible changes after the state recorded 145 new cases and two deaths yesterday. Continue reading...

Downing Street says Brussels overtures are insufficient and ‘comprehensive’ solutions neededBoris Johnson has rejected Brussels’ latest attempt to iron out problems with the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland, insisting that the withdrawal agreement signed last year must be renegotiated.Related: If Britain wants to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol, this is not the way to do it | Anand Menon and Jill Rutter Continue reading...

Confirmed infections have dropped 21.5% week on week – though recorded deaths are still on the rise

Kwasi Kwarteng has instructed Whitehall officials to keep close tabs on the takeover bid by CobhamThe UK government has signalled that it is monitoring the sale of a key military supplier to a firm backed by US private equity amid concerns over the potential impact on national security.The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, is understood to have instructed Whitehall officials to keep close tabs on the multibillion-pound takeover bid of Ultra Electronics lodged by Cobham, which is owned by the American private equity group Advent. Continue reading...

Action comes as Kremlin increases pressure on opponents and critics ahead of parliamentary electionsRussian authorities have restricted access to Alexei Navalny’s website and those of dozens of his close allies, the imprisoned opposition leader’s team has said.The action came as the government increased pressure on opposition supporters, independent journalists and human rights activists ahead of the country’s parliamentary election. The September vote is widely seen as an important part of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to cement his rule before a 2024 presidential election. Continue reading...

It’s been a tumultuous start for the Tokyo Olympics with protests outside the opening ceremony, a series of controversies around sexism and racism, and some athletes testing positive for Covid-19. Despite ongoing concerns about an outbreak, athletes are persevering, with predictions of a record year for the Australian medal tally.Deputy sports editor Emma Kemp discusses the highs and lows of the Olympics so far, and what to watch out for in the Games aheadRead more on this issue: Continue reading...

Justice and health groups say at least 65% of the children jailed in 2020 are Aboriginal or Torres Strait IslanderThe ongoing “failure” of Australia’s top legal officers to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old has seen 499 under-13s sent to jail in the past year alone, according to a coalition of 47 justice and health organisations.The coalition – representing welfare, youth and legal advocates, including Anglicare and Acoss – says attorneys general have “failed” to take action, “despite being handed an expert report overwhelmingly recommending that all states and territories and the federal government change laws to keep children out of prison.” Continue reading...

With daily tests in NSW hovering around 100,000, pathology turnaround times are being pushed back as residents wait in isolationTens of thousands of Covid nasal test swabs are being put on planes and flown from hotspots in New South Wales to be processed in Brisbane and other cities, with labs in Sydney still “drowning” from record testing turnouts that have led to result wait times of up to 10 days.As daily testing numbers hover around 100,000 in NSW, a backlog in processing swabs in Sydney continues to force people into isolation, with Guardian Australia aware of an essential worker abandoning their vaccine appointment as they await a negative result. Continue reading...

Two teenagers released from hospital after being stabbed during incident on city’s waterfrontPolice in Liverpool have increased patrols and imposed a second dispersal order on the city’s waterfront after a mass brawl involving up to 100 youths over the weekend.Two teenage boys were stabbed in the buttocks in the fight, which broke out in Liverpool’s Keel Wharf at 9.15pm on Friday. The pair were treated in Alder Hey children’s hospital and have since been discharged. Continue reading...

Kais Saied invokes emergency article of constitution after violent protests against country’s biggest partyOften touted as the lone success story of the Arab spring revolutions a decade ago, Tunisia is facing a critical challenge to its fledgling democracy after its president suspended parliament and dismissed his prime minister in what critics described as a coup.Kais Saied, an independent without a party behind him, announced he was invoking an emergency article of Tunisia’s constitution late on Sunday night after a day of violent protests against the country’s biggest party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda movement. Continue reading...

Two fourteen-year-olds convicted of killing Olly, who was stabbed to death in park in ReadingTwo 14-year-old boys have been found guilty of murdering a teenage boy who was “lured” to a park in Reading and fatally stabbed.Oliver Stephens, 13, known as Olly, was killed at Bugs Bottom field in Emmer Green, Reading in Berkshire, on 3 January. Continue reading...

Protesters wanted someone from outside the elite, but parliament went for Najib Miqati, who has led the country twice beforeAfter a year-long standoff, Lebanon has named a new prime minister who its feuding factions hope can ward off a total economic collapse and save an estimated 2 million people from the brink of poverty.Protesters had demanded the selection of a figure removed from the political elite, but the Lebanese parliament instead named a billionaire tycoon, Najib Miqati, who had led the country twice before, with little success, and was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of embezzlement – a charge he denies and has described as politically motivated. Continue reading...

David Lowery’s complex, visually sumptuous and uncommercial tale of Arthurian legend revels in upending expectationsEqual parts folk, prog rock and metal, The Green Knight takes place at the inflection point when one version of the old world was supplanted by the next. In David Lowery’s liberty-taking interpretation of the character’s 14th-century origin poem, the headstrong yet not-quite-valiant Sir Gawain (Dev Patel, superb) traverses an England caught between the mystical pagan religions and the nascent Christianity soon to change the face of the nation.At first, subtler touches denote the friction between the two, as in the cross-cutting juxtaposition of a supernatural blood-and-bone ritual against the quasi-biblical imagery of an ageing Arthur’s court. (The king’s crown doesn’t take the shape of a golden disc framing his head for nothing.) By the time near the third act that Lowery reveals his key reference point to be Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, another mounting of myth invested in mortal frailty and unconcerned with textual fidelity, it’s apparent that the maturation of one man is meant to coincide with that of an entire society. Continue reading...

Vaccines minister says government will recognise UK-authorised jabs given overseas from next month

Ukrainian conducts Wagner’s opera Flying Dutchman in front of audience including chancellor Angela MerkelFor the first time in its 145-year history, the Bayreuth opera festival has been opened by a female conductor.Oksana Lyniv was applauded with warmth and vigour by the festival audience at the end of conducting Richard Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. Continue reading...

Zara Rutherford, whose parents are both pilots, announces her gap year projectA 19-year-old student has announced her gap year project: aiming to become the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.Zara Rutherford, who has British and Belgian nationality, will set off from her home city of Brussels next month for the circumnavigation, which is set to take her up to three months. Continue reading...

Family of a previous victim and a local MSP say demands for action to prevent tragedies have been ignoredUrgent calls have been made for water patrols and safety warnings on Loch Lomond after four people drowned during the hot weather in Scotland.The family of a teenage girl killed there last year and a local MSP accused Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park and the Scottish fire and rescue service (SFRS) of ignoring their demands for safety measures to prevent drownings. Continue reading...

Firefighters are working to put out wildfires that have spread quickly across parts of south-western Sardinia, destroying 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of forest and forcing 1,500 people to be evacuated from their homes. On Sunday the EU sent four firefighting planes, including two Canadair planes provided by France, to support 11 aircraft working to extinguish the fires raging close to 13 towns. Efforts have been hampered by strong and hot winds

The Royal Horticultural Society has just awarded a gold medal to a garden full of ragwort and other weeds – and there are some clear benefits to letting nature take its courseName: Weed gardens.Age: Possibly older than actual gardens. Continue reading...

Even social butterflies might find themselves a little overwhelmed as everything reopens. Here’s how to ease in gently, keep conversation light and avoid the dreaded ‘hangxiety’Call it the lockdown paradox: after spending so much time in isolation, adjusting to smaller lives, we may now be struggling to expand them.Now that restrictions have been lifted, the pressure to pack our calendars, make the most of the summer and say yes to every invitation is coming up uncomfortably against a public that is not match-fit for marathon socialising. Even those butterflies who used to happily flit from event to event may now be finding one is enough. Continue reading...

Ambulances diverted away from Whipps Cross hospital as heavy rain causes flooding across capitalAll planned surgery and outpatient appointments have been cancelled at an east London hospital after a weekend of heavy rain caused flooding in parts of the capital.Officials said ambulances were being diverted away from Whipps Cross hospital while a cleanup operation was carried out. It comes after footage online showed various parts of the broader area under water. Continue reading...

Law professor was surprise 2019 election winner and now finds himself at centre of political crisisKais Saied, the Tunisian president who has plunged the country into a new political crisis, has always been something of a political blank slate.A surprise winner of the 2019 elections, the rise to power of Saied, 63, a dry law professor with little political experience and no party to speak of, spoke to the disillusionment of Tunisians with their country following the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab spring. Continue reading...

Bernadette Walker had told her mother that Scott Walker was sexually abusing her, jury hearsA man has been found guilty of murdering his 17-year-old daughter who went missing in July last year and whose body has never been found.Scott Walker was found guilty of the murder of Bernadette Walker by a jury at Cambridge crown court. Continue reading...

Cebelihle Mbuyisa is a freelance journalist who was beaten for covering pro-democracy protests in the kingdom of Eswatini. Formerly known as Swaziland, the country has been rocked in recent weeks by anti-monarchy protests calling for King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, to have his powers diluted.Protests turned violent, with reports suggesting there have been more than 50 deaths and countless casualties so far at the hands of state security forces. The Guardian spoke to Mbuyisa, who described his experience of being beaten by the police after they accused him of reporting illegally, and explained why protesters are calling for more democracy in Eswatini.In his first comments since the unrest began, the king called the protests 'satanic' and said they had taken the country backwards. Continue reading...

It’s an argument that’s raged for decades, taking in everyone from the Who to Nirvana to the Spice Girls, but a recalibration of what that term means has changed everythingIn the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle itIn 1992, Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone: “I don’t blame the average 17-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout.” Nirvana had moved from indie label Sub Pop to Geffen, a major, to release Nevermind. “And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realise there’s more things to life than living out your rock’n’roll identity too righteously.” As ever, Cobain was right: three decades on, bellyaching about integrity is outdated when ethics don’t pay the rent. Continue reading...

Branco and X-Lang are part of an elite team – four canines and their Yazidi handlers – leading a groundbreaking sniff-search for the homemade devices that litter the landOn the wide, flat plain of the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, Naif Khalaf Qassim lets his dog, an eight-year-old Belgian shepherd, range across the dry earth on a 30-metre leash until Branco stops and sits, tail wagging, looking towards his handler with enthusiasm.Branco has detected something underground and, when the mine-clearing team is brought in to investigate, they find an improvised explosive device (IED), known locally as a VS500. Continue reading...

Restrictions and expensive testing requirements are hindering UK’s economic recovery, says airport

Morrison government has agreed to implement all 10 findings from Foster review into the parliamentary workplace• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefingFormer Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has welcomed the Morrison government’s decision to adopt an independent complaints mechanism for serious incidents in Parliament House, which is the central recommendation of the Foster review.Higgins, who says she was raped by a more senior colleague in the office of the then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, said on Monday an independent complaints mechanism would “ensure Parliament House is a safer workplace for all future employees”. Continue reading...

Kona Williams says many unanswered questions remain about how to investigate remains found at the sites of residential schoolsIn her job as a forensic pathologist, Kona Williams investigates hundreds of deaths a year.But when she heard that unmarked graves had been found at the site of a residential school in late May, she was seized by a grim realization. Continue reading...

Police investigate comments by Kate Shemirani, who compared medical staff to Nazi war criminals

Perhaps longing for a more carefree era, artists such as Lorde, Billie Eilish and Haim are fondly looking back to when S Club 7 and Shania Twain frolicked in low-rise denimThe turn of the millennium is not generally considered a vintage era for mainstream music in the UK. Sandwiched between Britpop and the mid-00s indie revival, it was a period dominated by talent show winners, girl- and boybands, ex-boyband and girlband members, acts with tie-ins to kids’ TV shows, and doleful singer-songwriters such as Dido and David Gray. It was sometimes trite, occasionally rapturous and – Dido and Gray aside – frivolous, family-friendly fun.It isn’t, in other words, an era you’d expect a pop star on the cultural vanguard to be into. Yet last month Lorde revealed that her forthcoming third album was influenced by what she calls “early 00s bubblegum pop” – in particular, tween-targeted hitmakers S Club 7, Natasha Bedingfield, Natalie Imbruglia, All Saints and Nelly Furtado. She is not alone – the reclamation of late 90s and early 00s mainstream pop by young artists is now fully under way. Many heard shades of S Club in Dua Lipa’s 2020 album Future Nostalgia, and Lipa’s single Don’t Start Now had more than a bit of Spiller and Sophie Ellis Bextor’s 2000 smash Groovejet in its DNA. Continue reading...

In lockdown, insomnia has soared. Our tired, intrepid writer tried a range of remedies – including CBD, deep breathing and lettuce waterHow did you sleep last night? Insomnia rates have soared during successive lockdowns: anyone would think facing a constant existential threat isn’t the ideal preparation for a refreshing eight hours. Suggested remedies abound – behavioural, pharmaceutical, nonsensical and bleeding obvious – and I have tried most of them.Insomnia can be a competitive sport and I am not podium material; I’m a common or garden poor sleeper, rarely getting more than five hours a night (luxury, I hear the real insomniacs hissing in red-eyed fury), often less and sometimes, thankfully rarely, none. That is not exceptional. It’s not the stuff of insomnia memoirs, which do exist, but I refuse to read any in case they give my brain and body ideas. But it is wearing. On nights when sleep just isn’t happening, I’m filled with despair at the realisation that I will not get even a short break from being in my own head. Continue reading...

Fast-spreading blazes destroy 20,000 hectares of forest and force 1,500 people to be evacuated from homesFirefighters are working to put out wildfires that have spread quickly across parts of south-western Sardinia, destroying 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of forest and forcing 1,500 people to be evacuated from their homes.Many agricultural businesses and private properties have been damaged by the fires, which began on Saturday in the province of Oristano. Continue reading...

Evidence given via video link from Kabul concerned a key allegation that the former soldier murdered handcuffed man• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefing“A big soldier”, an Australian SAS trooper, kicked a handcuffed Afghan villager down a steep embankment, before the man’s body was later seen being dragged into an orchard, a court has heard in a pivotal day of evidence in Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial.The first Afghan witness in the trial, Mohammed Hanifa Fatih, appeared by video link from Kabul. He told the federal court he and his uncle Ali Jan were captured and handcuffed by Australian troops in the village of Darwan on 11 September 2012. He said he saw Ali Jan being kicked down a steep embankment, and his body was later found near an orchard. Continue reading...

He has dressed Beyoncé and Lady Gaga – and now he’s dressed Birmingham. As his ‘infinity pattern’ is unveiled, the artist talks poverty, class – and why he’s not interested in being a ‘good immigrant’Approaching Birmingham New Street station on the train, you’ll normally spot the scaly curves of Selfridges’ landmark Future Systems-designed building nestling in the cityscape. But right now, rising into the summer sky in its place, is a bright pink and black structure. Startling, cheering and entirely unmissable, Infinity Pattern 1 is a giant installation by the multidisciplinary artist Osman Yousefzada. He was formerly best known as a fashion designer, whose beautifully tailored and elegantly architectural pieces have been worn by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Now the 44-year-old has tailored a distinctive look for the Selfridges store, said to be the height of three jumbo jets, surrounding the building during a year of restoration.Infinity Pattern 1 is Yousefzada’s first piece of public art, selected by Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery from an international shortlist. “You can read it clearly from a long way away and that was something we considered when we were selecting,” says Jonathan Watkins, Ikon’s director. “We wanted it to ring out from afar. The fact that Osman comes from Birmingham, but is so cosmopolitan and such a Renaissance man, it’s wonderful that he was the one who won.” Continue reading...

NSW reports 145 local Covid-19 cases overnight; no lockdown announcement for Victoria today after 11 new local cases recorded; SA to lift lockdown from midnight tomorrow and another vaccine record. Follow the latest updates

Ministers considering plan that would also make double Covid jabs compulsory for students staying in halls of residence

After a rapid start, vaccination rates have slackened – but complex, highly personal decisions lie beneath the slowdownYolette Bonnet, 60, the chief executive of a group of community health clinics in underserved neighborhoods across Palm Beach County, Florida, got vaccinated. Perhaps this would be unremarkable, except that she got her shot Thursday, more than seven months after she was eligible to get the vaccine with ready access as a healthcare provider.Related: Republican governor says ‘time to start blaming unvaccinated’ for rise in cases Continue reading...

Airline reports €273m loss for three months to end of June, with Covid-19 continuing to ‘wreak havoc’

Thirty-nine-year-old taken to hospital after ‘very distressing’ incident in central LondonA woman has been attacked with a knife at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in London, police said.The 39-year-old was taken to hospital after the attack at the site where people gather for public speeches and debates. Continue reading...

After more than a year of closure, the Spitalfields Trust has announced the reopening and renewal of Dennis Severs’ House. Severs came to Spitalfields in 1979 and bought a derelict house. He reconfigured it to tell the story of a fictional family who had lived there since its construction in 1724 Continue reading...

Eagles, falcons, vultures, owls – a close encounter with birds of prey is a riveting reminder of the gulf between them and us

Iranian asylum seeker’s family seek damages for wrongful death and mental harm

The MSC’s coveted blue tick is the world’s biggest, and some say best, fishery ecolabel. So why is it in the headlines – and does it really do what it says on the tin?This month, two right whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence were found entangled in fishing gear. One, a female, was first spotted entangled off Cape Cod last year, but rescuers were not able to fully free her; the other, a male, is believed to have become entangled in the Gulf.Hunted to near extinction before a partial whaling ban in 1935, North Atlantic right whales are once more critically endangered, with only 356 left. The main threat remains human contact: entanglement in fishing gear, and ship strikes. Fatal encounters, caused in part by the whales’ migratory shift into Canada’s snow crab grounds, have soared: more than a tenth of the population died or were seriously injured between 2017 and 2021, mostly in Canada and New England. Continue reading...

The superstar producer nearly quit music during lockdown. Now he’s starting a ‘new phase’ with a TV show. He discusses therapy, paparazzi – and being tucked in by Robin WilliamsMark Ronson has been a DJ longer than he hasn’t: his entire adult life, sometimes working four or five nights a week, since he was 18. “What is that?” He casts his mind back and counts. “Twenty-five – no, 27 years. Jesus.”In this time, he has been a staple of the New York scene, the studio partner of Amy Winehouse and a superproducer of artists from Ghostface Killah to Lady Gaga. He has his own instantly recognisable, vintage-leaning sound and is the invisible touch on songs that define not just years but decades. Continue reading...

Painstaking research deciphers carvings of religious bounty dating back almost five centuriesFor almost 500 years, the arch that connects the largest Gothic cathedral in the world with its Renaissance sacristy has offered visitors a sumptuous, if little glimpsed – and even less studied – vision of religious bounty.The 68 beautifully carved plates of food that adorn the archway in Seville’s cathedral offer rather more than bread and wine. Continue reading...

£4.5m monument at national memorial arboretum in Staffordshire will be unveiled on WednesdayIf PC Fiona Bone had turned a different way, if she had been sick that day, if her degree in film production studies had led to more work, her father, Paul, would have not spent the last nine years grieving.For officers and their families, the difference between life and death in policing can be terribly slight. Continue reading...

Nurses, teachers, GPs and police officers among those to give evidence to cross-party inquiry

Senior Iraqi figures say Qaani lacks authority as standoff between the militias and the state continuesOn a baking early summer evening last month, Iran’s man in Iraq sat down in Baghdad with a group of militiamen to try to bring calm to the capital’s foreboding streets.Assembled in a room were leaders of the most feared militias in the land, men who had days before taken over a checkpoint leading to the seat of power, and were planning a military parade of their own through the Iraqi capital. Among them sat Esmail Qaani, an Iranian commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force – a clandestine group at the apex of the Iranian military’s foreign operations, which had been instrumental in Iraq’s affairs through war, insurrection and now relative peace. Continue reading...