Photography collective Oculi’s first group project gives a glimpse into the lives of 12 members and the people they share their lives withConor Ashleigh – photographerMazie Turner was more than just my creative mentor; she was a friend, an aunty, a collaborator and above all one of my greatest inspirations. Since passing away in 2014, Mazie has never been far away.This January I made the most of a summer in Australia and headed north on a road trip. I visited Mazie’s two eldest granddaughters Mali and Lily, both of whom I had often photographed a decade ago as part of my project Baby in a Chapel. I was amazed to see how Mali and Lily had grown and flourished in the seven years since I saw them last. Mali was entering her final year of high school, and she had become a talented and articulate young woman. Continue reading...

The bestselling author on their memoir about growing up gay and black in the US, helping others to find healing, and the power of non-binary young adultsGeorge M Johnson is a writer and activist whose first book, All Boys Aren’t Blue, is a memoir about growing up black and queer in America. The book is aimed at young adults and catalogues in candid style the author’s experiences of both trauma and healing, from childhood bullying to teenage sexual abuse, to their relationship with their family and changing understanding of their masculinity and sexuality. It was published in the US last year to widespread acclaim, reviewers describing it as a “gamechanger”, offering “a deep but clear-eyed love for its subjects”. It has been optioned for television by actor and activist Gabrielle Union. Johnson lives in Newark, New Jersey.When did you know you wanted to write your story?

Bird with knife attached to leg ready to take on opponent inflicts fatal injuries to man’s groinA rooster fitted with a knife for an illegal cockfight in southern India has killed its owner, sparking a manhunt for the organisers of the event, police said.The bird had a knife attached to its leg ready to take on an opponent when it inflicted serious injuries to the man’s groin as it tried to escape, officers said. The man died from loss of blood before he could reach a hospital in the Karimnagar district of Telangana state earlier this week, local police officer B Jeevan told AFP. Continue reading...

The author and eminent climate scientist on the deniers’ new tactics and why positive change feels closer than it has done in 20 yearsMichael E Mann is one of the world’s most influential climate scientists. He rose to prominence in 1999 as the co-author of the “hockey-stick graph”, which showed the sharp rise in global temperatures since the industrial age. This was the clearest evidence anyone had provided of the link between human emissions and global warming. This made him a target. He and other scientists have been subject to “climategate” email hacking, personal abuse and online trolling. In his new book, The New Climate War, he argues the tide may finally be turning in a hopeful direction.You are a battle-scarred veteran of many climate campaigns. What’s new about the climate war?

Public were not able to attend funeral but thousands signed online book of condolences

A second world war-era plane flew over the funeral service in honour of Moore, who raised almost £39m for NHS charities during the first coronavirus lockdown. An honour guard fired three volleys as Moore’s coffin was carried into the crematorium by six soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment. After tributes to Moore by his family, a bugler played the Last Post

Susan Michie cites evidence from previous vaccine rollouts, saying people should not drop their guard

Officers intensify use of force, firing teargas and rubber bullets at people protesting against coupA woman has reportedly been shot and killed as police in Myanmar escalated a violent crackdown on anti-coup protesters, firing teargas and rubber bullets and detaining dozens of people.Police intensified their use of force just hours after the country’s ambassador to the United Nations gave an emotional address calling for international action to restore democracy and protect the people. Continue reading...

Spanish officials recommend 864 cows that have been at sea for two months are no longer fit for transportMore than 850 cattle that have spent months adrift in the Mediterranean are no longer fit for transport and should be killed, according to a confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians.A lawyer for the cattle ship’s management company told the Guardian on Saturday that he planned to resist the move, even as a video from the port appears to show preparations being made to unload the cattle. Continue reading...

Anas Sarwar said becoming Scottish Labour leader was the greatest honour of his life, and pledged to rebuild the party. ‘I know Labour has a lot of work to do to win back your trust,’ Sarwar said. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been good enough.’Sarwar, 37, faces a battle to save Labour from what polls suggest could be another humiliating Holyrood election in May. After losing every Scottish and UK election since 2007 to the SNP, including losing all its MEPs in the 2016 European elections, Labour has since gone through seven Scottish leaders. Sarwar will be its eighth

The poet explains how researching her history led her to tell the story from three perspectives: the birth mother, the adoptive mother and the daughterIn one way, I’d been writing the poems in The Adoption Papers for my whole life. I’d been making up an imaginary birth mother and father with my adoptive mother for years, since I was a kid. She would say of my birth father: “I’m picturing a Paul Robeson figure, Jackie, perhaps with a bit of Nelson Mandela mixed in.”In another, I started writing the book when I was pregnant. It’s difficult when your writing infiltrates your life and vice versa, difficult to work out what actually happened and what didn’t. Your imaginative life is your reality. Continue reading...

Sarwar wins snap election triggered by surprise resignation of Richard Leonard six weeks agoAnas Sarwar has won the Scottish Labour leadership contest after a snap election triggered by the surprise resignation of Richard Leonard six weeks ago.Sarwar, a former deputy leader of Scottish Labour backed by a majority of the party’s parliamentarians, defeated the other candidate Monica Lennon, a less experienced MSP backed on the party’s left, winning 57.6% of the vote. Continue reading...

Treasury says low-deposit mortgages have virtually disappeared since 2008 financial crisisThe chancellor is expected to unveil a mortgage guarantee scheme that aims to help first-time buyers get their foot on the property ladder in next week’s budget.Rishi Sunak is attempting to incentivise lenders to provide mortgages to first-time buyers, along with current homeowners, with deposits as low as 5% on properties worth up to £600,000. The government will offer lenders the guarantee they need to provide mortgages covering the remaining 95%, with details set to be unveiled on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Students, teachers and family members released after gunmen stormed college in Kagara two weeks ago

Restrictions in country’s biggest city to be imposed after single Covid case of unknown origin was recorded

Family-only service given honour in recognition of veteran who died at 100 after raising £38m for NHSA second world war-era plane will fly over Captain Sir Tom Moore’s funeral service in honour of the war veteran, who raised almost £39m for NHS charities during the first coronavirus lockdown.

Every year, thousands of British children are conceived with the help of donor sperm. But few ever meet their siblings...Caroline Pearson, a podcast producer from London, was a few days into her maternity leave when she discovered that her unborn daughter had two sisters. She had visited a website a friend had told her about, which allows recipients of donated sperm (such as her) to search for families who have used the same donor. If they’ve registered with this website, they could be anywhere in the world, since the US sperm bank chosen by Pearson and her husband, Francis, ships internationally, and the website, Donor Sibling Registry (DSR), is also US-based with an international reach. Pearson couldn’t resist, and typed in the donor’s reference number.“Suddenly, I was overwhelmingly curious,” Pearson says. She didn’t expect to find anything – let alone two families living within a half-hour radius. The first profile was a single mother to a two-year-old girl, living nearby in London. It seemed an extraordinary coincidence. Caroline was “totally giddy”; her partner Francis, a photographer, was cautious. “I tried to rein things in,” he says. “Caroline was pregnant and we were already dealing with becoming parents, and the donor process. But all this other stuff, it was so unknown. I’m practical and you think: yes, that could be amazing – but what if they’re awful people?” Continue reading...

I imagine a thriving mouse community going about its business behind the plaster, with an occasional member stopping to say, ‘I think I hear someone typing out there’The oldest one is complaining about a mouse that he says lives in his bedroom.“It scrabbles about under the floorboards,” he says. “It sounds big.” Continue reading...

Ken, 60, sales director, meets Shelley, 63, Spanish interpreterWhat were you hoping for?

Expect measures to help economic recovery but watch out for capital gains tax and other tax risesRishi Sunak’s budget on 3 March is set to unveil a range of measures to help support the recovery of the UK economy, but tax rises are in the offing too. Here is what we can expect. Continue reading...

Simon Birmingham rejects suggestion unnamed minister at centre of allegations should stand asideAs pressure builds on Scott Morrison to investigate allegations of a historical rape levelled against one of his cabinet ministers, a woman who had known the victim for 30 years has come out to say she “absolutely, 100% believes” her friend.New South Wales police have confirmed the alleged victim reported the incident to them in February 2020, and the allegations have also been forwarded to the Australian federal police. Continue reading...

For a generation used to freedoms that have come with democracy, going back to military rule is unthinkable

Notorious gangster Arnel Joseph shot dead at police checkpoint after more than 400 inmates escape in country’s biggest breakout for 10 yearsMore than 400 inmates have escaped and 25 people have died in a prison breakout in Haiti, authorities say, making it the country’s largest and deadliest one in a decade. A prison director and a powerful gang leader were among those killed.The breakout at Croix-des-Bouquets prison on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince on Thursday was believed to be an attempt to free gang leader Arnel Joseph, who had been Haiti’s most wanted fugitive until his 2019 arrest on charges including rape, kidnapping and murder. Continue reading...

Corporation tax and capital gains tax expected to rise as chancellor begins huge task of repaying Covid debtRishi Sunak will use the volatility in global financial markets to ram home a budget message next week that immediate action is needed to repair the damage to the public finances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.Despite the deep downturn caused by the third nationwide lockdown in England, the chancellor – who has been closely monitoring market moves – will announce the first steps towards reducing the biggest peacetime deficit in Britain’s history. Continue reading...

Police set up crime scene after large chunk of flesh, including a bellybutton, found at MollymookSix days after Sydney businesswoman Melissa Caddick’s decaying foot washed up on a New South Wales south coast beach, more human remains have drifted ashore.Police were called to Mollymook at 6.30pm on Friday after remains were discovered by members of the public. Continue reading...

Analysis: The US has sanctioned 76 people linked to Khashoggi’s murder, but not Mohammed bin Salman, future king of a strategic Middle East allyFriday was the day that Joe Biden’s vaunted drive to put human rights back at the centre of US foreign policy slammed, as such drives usually do, into the brick wall of great power realpolitik.As it had promised, the new administration obeyed the law laid down by Congress and ignored by its predecessor. It published an unclassified summary of the intelligence assessment that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, “approved” the murder and dismemberment of the Saudi reformer and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Continue reading...

Analysis: decision not to penalise Saudi heir over Jamal Khashoggi shows kingdom still has influenceAfter two years of blanket cover from Donald Trump, a new US president has officially blamed Mohammed bin Salman for the most savage political slaying of modern times and brought the Saudi heir’s unchecked run with Washington to a humiliating halt.Joe Biden’s confirmation that Prince Mohammed approved the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi bluntly ends the era of bromance between his predecessor and the kingdom’s de facto leader, and signals a very different relationship with a new administration. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison says he admired Flint’s ‘efforts to stand against the bullying and nastiness of particular groups and individuals’Scott Morrison has acknowledged being a member of parliament “does sometimes attract unacceptable behaviour” as he paid tribute to Nicolle Flint, the South Australian Liberal MP who has announced she will not contest the next election.Flint holds South Australia’s most marginal seat of Boothby. The MP has been outspoken about sexist abuse she has suffered in public life, and her foreshadowed departure coincides with a debate about duty of care sparked by the rape allegations levelled by the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins. Continue reading...

Campaigners say relationship with Riyadh needs a rethink after US concludes crown prince approved murder of journalistBritain faced fresh calls to end unrestricted arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the US published a CIA assessment which concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Charities, civil rights groups and others said the disclosure threw the UK’s traditionally close relationship with Riyadh into stark relief in the aftermath of the release of the short but unambiguous report. Continue reading...

Hundreds of calves crammed onboard a ship were checked by Spanish government veterinarians after months at sea, suspected of contracting the bovine disease bluetongue.

Biden administration to target ‘counter-dissident’ activity and Saudi official but not Mohammed bin Salman personallyUS intelligence agencies have concluded in a newly declassified intelligence report that Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, approved the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi – but Washington stopped short of targeting the future Saudi king with financial or other sanctions.The four-page report released on Friday confirmed the long-suspected view that the 35-year-old future king had a personal hand in the violent murder of one of his most prominent critics, a columnist and former Saudi insider who was living in exile in the US and used his platform to decry the prince’s crackdown on dissent. Continue reading...

The targets envisioned by the Paris Agreement leave no room for fossil fuelled commercial aviation by 2050Aviation is an important part of the global economy; until Covid-19, it was responsible for 2.8% of global CO2 emissions. In New Zealand, aviation is responsible for an even higher percentage of CO2 emissions, the figure having doubled since 1990 to 13% in 2018. The country’s geographic isolation, transport system, international tourist industry, and globally dispersed families have all contributed to the jump in growth and will make reducing emissions a challenge.But New Zealand has signed up to net zero emissions by 2050 and enacted the Zero Carbon Act, which aims to implement policies that will limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5C, in line with the Paris Agreement. Continue reading...

Scotland’s former first minister appears before MSPs investigating inquiry by Nicola Sturgeon’s government into complaints made against him

Former first minister launches a stinging attack on the SNP during evidence to a Holyrood inquiry

England's deputy chief medical officer has told people not to break the country's lockdown rules ahead of official relaxations, particularly those who have received their Covid vaccinations. With worrying signs cases might be rising slightly, Van-Tam said the country was not yet 'in the right place' and pressed people not to 'wreck this now'

Majority of member states back proposal to bring in country-by-country tax reportingThe EU has moved to force multinational companies to publish a breakdown of the tax they pay in each of the bloc’s member states and in tax havens such as Seychelles, piling pressure on the UK government to follow suit.Country-by-country reporting is designed to shine a light on how some of the world’s biggest companies – such as Apple, Facebook and Google – avoid paying an estimated $500bn (£358bn) a year in taxes by shifting their profits from higher-tax countries such as the UK, France and Germany to zero-tax or low-tax jurisdictions including Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta. Continue reading...

Pokémon Legends Arceus and Pokémon Shining Diamond and Brilliant Pearl announced on the eve of the Nintendo series’ 25th anniversaryTomorrow marks 25 years since the first Pokémon titles debuted on Nintendo’s Game Boy in Japan – and developer Game Freak has announced two new games to mark the occasion, both inspired by 2006’s Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.The first releases are Pokémon Shining Diamond and Brilliant Pearl, remakes of the Nintendo DS originals for Nintendo Switch, out later this year. Pokémon Legends Arceus, an adventure set in the region of Sinnoh’s past, and resembling a blend of Pokémon Stadium and Breath of the Wild, will be released in 2022, also on Nintendo Switch. It is a significant diversion from the usual turn-based fights and tightly controlled exploration of a Pokémon game, with free movement and wild creatures roaming an open world. Continue reading...

Two-thirds of doses delivered to country have yet to be dispatched to vaccination centres

Mark Machin steps down from position after traveling for first dose of vaccine while most Canadians wait to receive their first jabThe head of Canada’s largest pension fund has resigned after disregarding public health advice and travelling to Dubai for a dose of the coronavirus vaccine.The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced on Friday that CEO Mark Machin had stepped down from his position, after the Wall Street Journal first reported Machin’s trip late on Thursday. Continue reading...

Pregnant Afghan woman gave testimony to prosecutor from her hospital bedA pregnant Afghan woman who was severely injured when she set herself on fire in a refugee camp on Lesbos has been formally charged with arson and destruction of public property after giving testimony to a prosecutor from her hospital bed.The 26-year-old, who is due to give birth next week, was told she would face trial for her actions and be unable to leave Greece. She has not been publicly identified. Continue reading...

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea leader says sorry for series of property deals made before 2017 fire

Queue-jumping triggers rows and resignations – and experts say it could undermine trust in the system

It is much easier to deprive someone of their citizenship and rights when they have been reduced to a caricature

Tamayo Marukawa among 50 conservative MPs to urge local body not to support policy change

Stewart Wingate expresses optimism for summer despite airport reporting £526m pre-tax loss

The Books of Jacob, praised by the Nobel prize judges and winner of Poland’s prestigious Nike award, will be published in the UK in NovemberThe magnum opus of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk – a novel that has taken seven years to translate and has brought its author death threats in her native Poland – is to be published in English.The Books of Jacob, which will be released in the UK in November, is the Polish author’s first novel to appear in English since she won the 2018 Nobel prize for literature for what judges called “a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sylvie Bermann, who has written book in attempt to understand Brexit, says question of Britain’s identity was keyWhen Sylvie Bermann arrived in London in August 2014 as France’s new ambassador, it was, she says, a city of “dynamism and optimism”.“Extraordinary place. French cabinet ministers came, one after the other, looking for Britain’s recipe for success.” Continue reading...

Subterranean protest against high-speed rail line lasted 31 days in tunnel near London stationThe anti-HS2 tunnel protest close to Euston station in central London has finally ended after the ninth climate activist emerged from underground.The subterranean environmental protest has lasted for 31 days, one of the longest in UK protest history, although not quite breaking the record of the 40-day tunnel protest in Essex in 2000. Continue reading...

Al-Hawl camp, where Shamima Begum surfaced, is focal point of humanitarian crisis starring unsympathetic protagonistsWhen 20-year-old Shamima Begum, heavily pregnant and alone, managed to escape the US-led coalition bombing of Islamic State’s last stronghold two years ago, she left behind a scene resembling hell and entered limbo instead.Begum was among an astonishing 64,000 women and children who poured out of Baghuz, a tiny oasis town on the Euphrates river, deep in the Syrian desert. Many of their husbands and fathers died defending the last sliver of the so-called caliphate. Continue reading...