Here are the current coronavirus hotspots in Victoria and what to do if you’ve visited them

Lockdown was reason behind sharp fall in number of people treated by NHS for injuries outside the home, say researchersLockdown led to the smallest number of people on record being treated by the NHS for injuries caused by violence away from the home, a study shows.The closure of pubs, clubs and other venues that sell alcohol as part of the bans on social mixing was a key reason for the sharp decline in serious violence, the researchers say. Continue reading...

Belgium to relax most measure in June with all restrictions phased out by September; Joe Biden to announce scheme to boost US vaccination programme

2020’s heavily male ceremony reversed with wins for Arlo Parks, Haim and Billie Eilish, as Little Mix become first all-woman winner of British group

Police say the boy was on a football field at the time of the incidentA nine-year-old boy has died after apparently being struck by lightning on a football field in Blackpool, police have said.Officers from Blackpool police were called shortly after 5pm on Tuesday to fields near to School Road after reports a child had been injured. Continue reading...

Dua Lipa, the Weeknd, Elton John and more are playing the biggest night in British music to an actual indoor crowd of thousands. Follow the red carpet and ceremony here10.09pm BST[muted swear words]10.08pm BSTAn unrecognisable, blonde Maisie Williams presents this award, naming Swift “one of the biggest names in the history of music ... an inspiration to people all around the world”. In a VT, Selena Gomez says she’s “the same girl I met when I was 15 ... generous, kind and cares so deeply about her fans.” Ed Sheeran says “fans are constantly getting a different side of her and it’s a very difficult thing to do time and time again”; Zoe Kravitz says “nobody works harder”; Annie Lennox calls her “exceptional and I truly love how she uses her platform to advocate for women and the LGBT community.”And here she is, thrilled by the presence of Maisie Williams (“anyone who knows me at all knows that Game of Thrones is my life”) and Annie Lennox on the VT (“my soul left my body”).“I wanna thank the Brits and anyone who decided that I would be up for this incredible honour. i’m really proud to be part of this musical community especially in a year where we needed music so much – and what we needed even more was the help and support of the NHS and the key workers that are here for us tonight. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”We all know what happened next – the world changed and I ended up putting out three albums instead. Making Folklore and Evermore was one of the most unique, cathartic, extraordinary experiences I’ve ever had.”I wanna thank my friends and family, who know exactly who they are, whose opinion of me never changed whether my stock was up or down. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that you have to look around you every day and take note of the people who’ve always believed in you ... Never take them for granted. There are so many incredible artists in this room tonight and a lot of people watching who have goals and ambitions for yourselves. I need you to hear me: there is no career path that comes free of negativity. If you’re met with resistance that probably means that you’re doing something new. If you’re experiencing turbulence or pressure that probably means you’re rising and there might be times where you put your whole heart and soul into something and it is met with cynicism or scepticism. You cannot let it crush you: you have to let it fuel you because we live in a world where anyone has the right to say anything about you that they want at any time but please remember that you have the right to prove them wrong. I love you all. Thank you so much for this beautiful honour, thank you to the Brits, this is amazing. Continue reading...

Medics say 28 Palestinians, two Israelis and an Indian woman have died after day of fierce confrontation

Report says killings during British army operations in Belfast in 1971 were unjustifiedTen people killed in Belfast during a British army operation in 1971 were unarmed, innocent civilians and posed no threat to soldiers, an inquest in Northern Ireland has found.The damning findings in a long-awaited coroner’s report implicated the army in an atrocity to rival Bloody Sunday, potentially galvanising a new push to prosecute army veterans. Continue reading...

Wednesday: promise of tax cuts, funding for aged care, mental health services and childcare. Plus: Victorian man Covid-positive after finishing quarantineGood morning. We’ve got all the news from last night’s budget for you this morning – with funding for aged care, mental health, child care, plus tax breaks and much more. If you’re all caught up, we’ve also got a lovely story about Scottish highland cows, plus all the important news from the world while you were sleeping.Josh Frydenberg has declared “team Australia” is “coming back” from a grim Covid recession using his budget to extend tax cuts for business, and workers and provide a multibillion-dollar boost to aged care and mental health services. There’s also an attempt to woo women with a $1.7bn investment in childcare, $20.5m for the implementation of the Respect@Work inquiry report and funding to build skills in industries dominated by women. You can read Frydenberg’s full address (and between the lines) here, helpfully annotated by Katharine Murphy, who had plenty to say about the implication of this year’s budget for a potential election. “I’m not sure I’d go as far as this being an election budget, but this is, absolutely, a keeping your options open budget,” she said. If you’re not sure where to start, head to Guardian Australia’s handy breakdown to choose what matters to you. Continue reading...

Minister says country ‘shaken up’ by killing of Caroline Crouch, 20, while husband tied up and dog hung from banisterThe Greek government has offered a €300,000 (about £257,000) reward to try to track down the culprits behind the murder of a British-born student in her suburban Athens home.The reward was publicised hours after Caroline Crouch, 20, was strangled in front of her baby daughter by armed burglars who had bound her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, to a chair after breaking in. The intruders also killed the family’s dog, leaving it hanging from a banister in the house. Continue reading...

The new outbreak is the predictable result both of recent grievances and accumulated injusticesTen children were among 28 killed in Gaza in the Holy month of Ramadan, while two Israeli women were killed as Israeli air strikes pounded the territory and Palestinian militants fired rockets. In Jerusalem, Israeli police fired stun grenades, teargas and rubber bullets at one of Islam’s holiest sites, leaving 300 Palestinians injured. Could this get worse? Yes. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to increase the intensity of attacks. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars as well as periodic battles. Though they often prepare their exits, events can have a momentum of their own.The tinder was the decision of Israeli authorities to prevent Palestinians from gathering at the Damascus Gate following night-time prayers during Ramadan, as they normally do; a spate of intercommunal violence; and plans to evict hundreds of Palestinians from the homes they have lived in for decades in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem, giving them to Jewish settlers. Under Israeli law, Jews who can prove a title from before the 1948 war can claim back properties in the city. This cannot be justified when no similar law exists for the Palestinians who lost their homes. The evictions have been described by a UN rights body as a possible war crime. Aggressive tactics used by police there and at the al-Aqsa mosque reflect a culture of impunity. And only at the 11th hour, when the damage had already been done, was Monday’s provocative ultra-right march rerouted away from the Muslim quarter of the Old City. Continue reading...

American, Delta and United bosses join BA and Virgin Atlantic in saying US-UK vaccination levels mean routes should reopen

Ruth Gilligan’s thriller about eight men who cull cattle in rural Ireland wins £10,000 for books that ‘best evoke the spirit of a place’Ruth Gilligan’s literary thriller The Butchers, set in the Irish borderlands during the BSE crisis, has won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje prize for books that “best evoke the spirit of a place”.Gilligan’s novel beat titles including James Rebanks’ memoir of his family farm, English Pastoral, and Nina Mingya Powles’ poetry collection Magnolia, 木蘭 to the £10,000 prize. The Butchers opens with an ancient curse that decrees that eight men must touch every cow in Ireland as it dies, and follows a group of eight men as they roam rural Ireland in the 1990s, slaughtering the cows of those who still believe in the old ways. The novel unpicks the mysterious death of one of the Butchers, whose corpse is found suspended from a meat hook. Continue reading...

Homebuilder likely to boost market, but Treasury says slowing population growth and construction will help cool it in the long term

Covid vaccine maker passes its remuneration policy but suffers sizeable rebellion

Readers respond to the former prime minister’s hope for a middle way for Scotland rather than independenceLike Banquo’s ghost, Gordon Brown returns to haunt the independence debate in Scotland (Many Scots don’t want independence, but a more cooperative union, 9 May). And much like said spirit, he has come to represent not salvation but bad portents, because the last time he appeared was with “the vow” to deliver greater autonomy for Scotland within the union, in the hope of puncturing greater aspirations just prior to the referendum in September 2014. Then came David Cameron’s Downing Street “English votes for English laws” speech the day after the result, followed by the illusory promises of the Smith report. But here’s Brown again, heaving into view.The truth is that either the vow wasn’t delivered on or the crumbs it offered weren’t enough for an ever greater number of people in Scotland who see the union for what it is: not a partnership of equals but an anachronism predicated on Scotland being forever subjugated to the Conservative-dominated political direction of travel down south. Continue reading...

Architect known for his flamboyant, postmodernist buildings in Chicago, Berlin and cities around the worldStanding on a corner of downtown Chicago as a dazzling rocket ship of mirrored glass and salmon pink steel, the James R Thompson Center, more than any other building, encapsulates the flamboyant oeuvre of the German-American architect Helmut Jahn, who has died aged 81 in a cycling accident.The glitzy government building, originally known as the State of Illinois Center, is a fitting monument to the larger than life architect, as exuberant as it is divisive. Continue reading...

Jury finds Pontins staff in Suffolk failed to follow policy while restraining Paul ReynoldsA father-of-three who died at a Pontins holiday park would have lived had he not been restrained by the neck and placed in a prone position by security staff there, an inquest jury has found.Paul Reynolds, 38, from Colchester, died in hospital two days after the incident at Pontins Pakefield in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 14 February 2017, in which he became involved in an altercation with another guest. Continue reading...

As attacks leave 28 Palestinians and two Israelis dead, residents caught in the fighting share their storiesLying in Gaza’s main hospital and unconscious for most of the night, the patient was unsure who from his family was still alive.Muhammad al-Masri, 22, was in front of his house on Monday night, just before breaking his fast for Ramadan. “I heard the sound of a bombardment coming towards us from the frontier,” he said. Continue reading...

Yat-Sen Chang is told he faces long jail term after jury finds him guilty of 13 sexual offences against four teenagersA revered former English National Ballet (ENB) principal dancer faces a lengthy prison sentence after he was convicted of sexually abusing young dance students in his care.Yat-Sen Chang, 49, a leading figure within the British and international ballet scene, used his “power and prestige” to commit sexual offences against young students at ENB, a trial heard. Continue reading...

The preposterous Hollywood Foreign Press Association gravy train might have chugged on for ever if its members had just swallowed their pride and done more for diversityAn investigative report by the Los Angeles Times into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, that notoriously rackety organisation which administers the Golden Globes, has shown an eminently corruptible body drenched in antediluvian attitudes; this has resulted in NBC cancelling its TV coverage of next year’s ceremony and Tom Cruise handing back the three Globes he has personally won over the years.Related: Golden Globes backlash: Tom Cruise hands back awards and NBC drops broadcast Continue reading...

Mary Bastholm was reported missing in 1968 and serial killer has been a suspect in her disappearancePolice are searching a cafe in Gloucester for the remains of a missing teenager suspected of being murdered by the serial killer Fred West.Gloucestershire police said they had received possible evidence that a body could be buried within the Clean Plate cafe in Southgate Street, Gloucester. They were called to the scene by filmmakers researching a documentary about West. Continue reading...

Leading environmentalist criticises Armin Laschet for refusing to sack former spy chief Hans-Georg MaaßenThe conservative candidate for German chancellor in September’s elections has been told by the country’s leading environmentalist that he is legitimising antisemitism by refusing to oust the former head of domestic intelligence from his party.The accusation was levelled at Armin Laschet, the leader of the CDU, by Luisa Neubauer, the face of the Fridays for Future movement in Germany, in a standoff on a popular weekly chatshow on Sunday night. Continue reading...

A muscle-bound crew of mercenaries infiltrate a Las Vegas full of zombies in Snyder’s uninspired Netflix horror-thrillerZombies. They grunt. They lurch inelegantly through dystopian ruined streets, sometimes breaking into an athletic sprint. They stare sightlessly ahead, often with irises that glitter in the post-apocalyptic sunset with some nameless infection. Sometimes they shriek through hideously distorted mouths from which the flesh has already been half-eaten away, as they are blasted with a shotgun. They provide metaphors for consumerism and conformism, and they also furnish a low-budget horror launching pad for ambitious young directors. But zombies are often just boring: yucky and indistinguishable horror-vermin whose gruesome killing, in each case, is a dramatically uninteresting non-moment, and all too often humourless (although an honourable exception is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead).

Even by the violent standards of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the events of August 1971 were particularly shocking

Three teams of four puppeteers will accompany Little Amal from Turkey to Manchester to celebrate refugeesA giant puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl is to “walk” from Turkey to the UK through villages, towns and cities for one of the most ambitious and complex public artworks ever attempted.The Walk project was meant to have taken place between April and July but was delayed by the pandemic. Now the 5,000 mile (8,000km) journey of Little Amal, from Gaziantep, near the Turkish-Syrian border, to Manchester, will take place over 12 weeks from 27 July. Continue reading...

Ailing sectors targeted, as treasurer releases Australia’s 2021 budget. Follow all the latest. This blog is now closed

Craig Murray imprisoned for eight months for breaching court order protecting women’s identitiesThe former diplomat Craig Murray has been jailed for eight months after repeatedly breaching a court order protecting the identities of women who accused Alex Salmond of sexual assault.Murray, a blogger who describes himself as a historian and human rights activist, was found guilty last month of breaching the order in a series of blogposts attacking the decision to prosecute Salmond for 14 counts of sexual assault, including attempted rape. Continue reading...

Dissidents and critics claim election campaign is charadeIran’s outgoing president has criticised a sudden narrowing of the eligibility criteria for those hoping to succeed him as registration formally opened for candidates in the 18 June vote.Dissidents and critics claim the campaign is just a charade and helps provide legitimacy to an autocratic regime but the tensions over who can stand – and the move by a powerful unelected body to exert greater control – has revealed the tensions in Iranian society over the outcome. Continue reading...

In pared-back ceremony with only 74 people in Lords, monarch speaks of ‘levelling up’

President of Tatarstan republic describes incident as ‘great tragedy for the whole country’A gunman attacked a school in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday morning, killing seven students and a teacher, officials have said.Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of the Tatarstan republic where Kazan is the capital, said four male and three female eighth-grade students died in “a great tragedy for the whole country”. Minnikhanov’s press service later said a teacher was also killed. Eighth-grade children in Russia are 13 and 14 years old. Continue reading...

Food has felt more important than ever this past year – particularly meals that offer solace. From rösti to Coco Pops, here are the dishes that got us through

The indie-rocker is now a touchstone for a generation of young songwriters – and after learning to channel her pain and frustration, her 18th album is one of her bestJuliana Hatfield speaks with deliberation: her thoughts unfurl after pregnant pauses and are sharpened by astute clarifications. “I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought,” she says at one point, doubling back to ensure her meaning is clear. Such consideration isn’t a surprise, given the rippling effect of an infamous early-career interview.Nearly 30 years ago, while promoting her debut solo album Hey Babe, 23-year-old Hatfield, who was brand new to interviews, admitted to an inquiring male journalist that she was still a virgin. The casual comment became the focus of his piece, and incited scrutiny that followed the American songwriter throughout her rise. “When I was in the thick of it, it wasn’t really computing for me,” she says on a phone call from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It wasn’t until much later that I realised how intense it was, how gross it was, and how it affected my career in negative ways.” Continue reading...

Across Europe, worker-led delivery collectives are springing up to reclaim control from corporate platforms

Rio’s favelas have suffered countless horrors since the drug conflict began to intensify in the 1980s and the carnage in Jacarezinho has caused a wave of protestShaken, shoeless and with a gaping bullet wound to one of his feet, the young man staggered through Flávia Luciana’s front door at around 8am last Thursday as Rio’s decades-long drug conflict plumbed horrifying new depths.“Help me! For the love of God! Help!” she remembers him pleading as he sought shelter inside. Continue reading...

Fan Bingbing stars as an emperor’s wife having her portrait painted in this artful yet inert period dramaThis French-Chinese co-production about an earlier French-Chinese collaboration offers handsome pageantry amid its lavish recreation of 18th-century imperial court life, but it isn’t quite enough to compensate for a puttering narrative motor. Longtime Apichatpong Weerasethakul producer Charles de Meaux has turned director with a far eastern equivalent of Girl With a Pearl Earring – another decorous, ever so slightly sleepy matinee sit.The film’s subject is Jean-Denis Attiret (played by Melvil Poupaud), a real-life French Jesuit missionary who spent half of his 60-odd years employed as the Chinese court painter. His trickiest commission, recalled here, came from the emperor’s bored wife (Fan Bingbing), thirsting to preserve an image that might turn her indifferent husband’s head. Continue reading...

Census data reveals demographic timebomb, adding pressure on Beijing to boost incentives for couples to have more childrenChina has reported the slowest population growth since the early 1960s, despite scrapping its one-child policy in 2015 to encourage more births and stave off a looming demographic crisis.On Tuesday, the Chinese government released the results of its once-a-decade census, saying the overall population of China grew to 1.41178 billion in the 10 years to 2020, up by 5.38%. The increase reflects an average annual rise of 0.53%, down from 0.57% reported from 2000 to 2010. Continue reading...

Usually very rare, mucormycosis has a high mortality rate and is difficult to treatA rare black fungus that invades the brain is being increasingly seen in vulnerable patients in India, including those with Covid-19, as the health system continues to struggle in the midst of the pandemic.The health ministry on Sunday released an advisory on how to treat the infection. In the state of Gujarat, about 300 cases had been reported in four cities, including Ahmedabad, according to data from state-run hospitals. Continue reading...

An ambitious interactive structure in West Hollywood is the first part of a new initiative set to bridge outdoor advertising and public artIn 1967, Elektra Records took a risk by purchasing a large hand-painted billboard on West Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard to promote a new album by The Doors, an up-and-coming local band in residency at Whiskey a Go Go, a nearby nightclub. It would ignite a golden era of advertising on the 1.5-mile stretch known as Sunset Strip, where large-format signage advertised the latest releases to passersby. The area has been home to advertising art since the era of speakeasies and silent movies, and in 1991, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed that the iconic 70ft-tall Marlboro Man sign was “a more enduring urban monument than almost any other building in Los Angeles”.Related: To infinity and beyond: the spectacular sensory overload of Ryoji Ikeda’s art Continue reading...

I’m about to take the language test to become a citizen. I’ll be fine so long as I can talk about tortoises and snoringJust as “whelk war” with France is – perhaps – narrowly averted, I am unpatriotically heading to an outpost of the Fifth Republic in Manchester to take the French language test that is a prerequisite for citizenship. After 18 months of trying to become French, I am perhaps two-thirds of the way: close, but no handshake from a man in a sash. It’s a slow, bureaucratic business, but a stroll in the Tuileries compared with the cruel, expensive and idiotic process of becoming British.Conflicting commitments and, I admit, a little complacency mean I will be taking the exam without a second’s preparation. I am hoping that 27 years of speaking French with my husband will help me scrape through. The exam is not particularly hard, unlike the notorious Quebec French language test, which another native speaker recently failed. I just need to manage reading and listening comprehension, conduct a general conversation, and write a short essay on a set current affairs topic. Continue reading...

With one psychiatrist for 750,000 people and huge stigma about mental health, patients get little helpRadhwan Ali Hassan lives with his mother in a small house perched at the top of a sleepy Yemeni village called Aqeeqah, on the outskirts of Taiz city. From inside his bare-walled room, the 35-year-old hears the distant sound of an ice-cream van. He sees children running past his window and can smell goats, but he cannot remember the last time he walked outside.Thick metal shackles around his ankles are attached to a heavy chain fastened to the far wall. They clatter as Hassan paces his room, rocks from side to side and smiles vacantly. His pupils are wide, his movements slow. Continue reading...

There has long been a unique connection between the Somerset-based shoe-maker and the Caribbean island. It goes way beyond shoes - as a new edition of book Clarks in Jamaica demonstratesThe reggae producer Bunny Lee said: “Clarks stand the test of time inna Jamaica. All the other shoes come and bow down at Clarks’ foot.” DJ Trinity said in the 70s that you couldn’t get a girlfriend if you didn’t wear Clarks. And the dancehall star Vybz Kartel dedicated no fewer than three hit songs to the shoes. Clarks might be associated with schoolchildren in the UK, but they have also been the shoe of choice for Jamaican men for nearly 70 years. Continue reading...

Whitechapel Bell Foundry dates back to 1570, and was the factory in which Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were made. But it shut in 2017 and a fight for its future has been raging ever sinceOn a November evening in 2019, Nigel Taylor, who had until recently been the longest-standing employee at the oldest factory in England, took a seat inside a council chamber in the shadow of Canary Wharf in London. The room looked more like the setting of a US daytime TV court drama than a provincial government building in the East End, and it was packed with campaigners, councillors and property developers. Two fretful years had passed since the closure of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where Taylor had worked for 40 years. Raycliff Capital, a US venture capital firm, had recently acquired the foundry buildings, and a hearing was scheduled to rule whether they could be converted into a boutique hotel.For many in attendance, these development plans were close to sacrilege. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry had been casting bronze bells – what some bellringers call “heavy metal” – since 1570. Big Ben was made there in 1858. The Liberty Bell was made there in 1752. Over the centuries, bells from Whitechapel had made their way all over the world. Some 500 Whitechapel tower bells can be found in Australia, 600 in the US and at least 900 in Canada, according to its former owner Alan Hughes. Continue reading...

After the deaths of her son and husband, Rhian Mannings emerged slowly from grief to start a charity and find love again. What does her experience tell us about how suffering can change us?

I’ve watched from the UK as family and friends share increasingly desperate news. Nepal’s leaders have ensured the lack of preparation

Thai foreign correspondents club says the reporters face ‘certain arrest and persecution’ if deported back to MyanmarThree journalists and two activists from Myanmar who fled over the border to Thailand have been arrested for illegal entry and could face possible deportation, according to the reporters’ employer.Broadcaster DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) said their lives would be “in serious danger” if they were forced back to Myanmar, where the military took power in a coup on 1 February and has since arrested dozens of journalists. Continue reading...

Twenty-metre-long unfinished tunnel beneath Yongah Hill detention centre had been dug ‘over several months’A 20-metre-long unfinished escape tunnel has been discovered at an immigration detention centre in Western Australia, refugee advocates say.The nascent tunnel – dug three metres underground – was found on Monday morning, built underneath an accommodation block in Falcon compound of the Yongah Hill detention centre. Continue reading...

Recommendations of Bergin gambling inquiry likely to be revisited as Star chief says ‘the junket business is dead’The potential merger of Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment will put renewed pressure on state governments, casino regulators and casino operators to permanently end the use of junket companies that bring international gamblers to Australia.The Covid-19 pandemic had already ended the use of junket companies in practice, but the Bergin inquiry in NSW prompted Crown to publicly declare it would no longer partner with junket operators after the report found they raised serious risks of money laundering and involvement by organised crime. Continue reading...

Climbers and their Sherpa guides were estimated to have carried at least 3,500 oxygen bottles this season – now they need to be refilled