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Football player apologises after also apparently offering to hire sex workers for teammatesThe former Manchester City player Yaya Touré has been dropped from playing in Unicef’s annual charity football match after reportedly posting a pornographic video in a WhatsApp group with other players and offering to hire sex workers for them.Touré will no longer take part in the event after complaints were made about messages he sent to a group with fellow players in the children’s charity event. He reportedly posted a video showing a naked woman in a bath and offered to hire 19 sex workers for his teammates. Continue reading...

Floods caused by heavy seasonal rains have damaged more than 100,000 homes, says ministerSudan has declared a three-month state of emergency after flooding that has killed 99 people this year, according to the country’s state news agency.The Sudanese minister of labour and social development said that in addition to the deaths, the floods had affected more than half a million people, injuring 46, and had damaged more than 100,000 homes. Continue reading...

In stark contrast to rightwing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or propertyThe vast majority of the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests this summer have been peaceful, with more than 93% involving no serious harm to people or damage to property, according to a new report tracking political violence in the United States.But the US government has taken a “heavy-handed approach” to the demonstrations, with authorities using force “more often than not” when they are present, the report found. Continue reading...

PM is intrigued by Trump’s ‘relationship with the truth’, Kim Darroch writes in new bookKim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump. Continue reading...

As summer ends, and as deaths near 200,000 amid severe economic damage, experts say the next few months are vitalEven with three decades of experience in the travel industry, Jorge Pesquera has never seen a downturn in business like this one.Related: Could western Pennsylvania win Trump a second term? Continue reading...

Find a course at one of the top universities in the country. Our league tables rank them all subject-by-subject, as well as by student satisfaction, staff numbers, spending and career prospects Continue reading...

At least 6,000 people say they caught coronavirus in Ischgl, dubbed ‘Ibiza on ice’, and their class action is gaining pace. Those who were there recall a terrifying week

Children packed in like sardines, few face masks ... an English secondary teacher records pupils’ returnI wake at 4am, two hours before my alarm is due to go off, with sneezing fits and stomach cramps – cramps are one of my symptoms of anxiety. Continue reading...

This year’s report sees Oxford moving up from third to first for the first time in a decade

New South Wales announces five more Covid-19 cases while Queensland and South Australia report one more each

State newspaper reports leaders will punish ‘irresponsible’ city and provincial officials for failing to protect residentsNorth Korea has pledged harsh punishment for local officials it says failed to protect residents from a typhoon which caused a “serious incident” with dozens of casualties, the ruling party’s newspaper reported.Typhoon Maysak brought heavy downpours across the country earlier this week, with footage showing a street inundated with water in the eastern port town of Wonsan, Kangwon province. Continue reading...

Calls for Australian government to regard him as a foreign agent and explain how he can possibly work on a post-Brexit trade dealThe controversial appointment of Australian former prime minister Tony Abbott as an official trade adviser for the UK has sparked questions as to how he will manage conflicts of interest.The UK government officially confirmed Abbott’s appointment on Friday, defying a barrage of criticism over accusations of misogynistic and homophobic comments, and his views on the climate emergency. Continue reading...

Jorge Castañeda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, looks at the neighbour to the north – and where it might be headingIn 1830, Lorenzo de Zavala, the principal author of the 1824 Mexican constitution, found himself in exile. So decided to visit a nation he had long admired.Related: 'Trump has a different leadership style': David Rubenstein plays it by the book Continue reading...

Police say no newspaper delivery vans have yet left one site that prints major newspaper titlesMore than a dozen Extinction Rebellion protesters have been arrested after blockading two UK printworks owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp on Friday evening in a bid to stop a range of papers reaching newsstands on Saturday.More than 100 protesters used vehicles and bamboo lock-ons to block roads outside the Newsprinters printing works at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, near Liverpool on Friday. Continue reading...

More than half of yakuza are now over 50 - and 10% are over 70 - as a result of an ageing population and police crackdownsA double-whammy of skewed demographics and legal crackdowns has forced Japan’s yakuza crime syndicates to call on middle-aged men to do their dirtiest work, as they struggle to attract new blood to replenish their dwindling ranks.For the first time since records began in 2006, 51.2% of regular yakuza members are aged 50 or over – with a noticeable increase in septuagenarians – according to a new report by the national police agency. Continue reading...

Forty crew members are still missing but rescue efforts are being hampered by approach of Typhoon HaishenAuthorities have suspended their search for 40 missing crew members from a cargo ship that capsized off south-west Japan as Typhoon Haishen bears down on the region.The typhoon, the second in a week, is barrelling towards the southern cluster of Japanese Okinawa islands, prompting warnings about torrential rainfall and fierce wind gusts. It is expected to cross the region late on Sunday or early Monday. Continue reading...

US president says media should be asking about China rather than Russia despite global condemnation of attackPresident Donald Trump said the United States must look “very seriously” into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but that his administration had not yet seen any proof.“I think we have to look at it very seriously, if it’s the case,” he said, before talking at length about his diplomatic efforts in North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation in Russia. “I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s tragic. It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen. We haven’t had any proof yet, but I will take a look. Continue reading...

Joseph Williams, who practised as a GP in Auckland, is praised as a ‘pioneer’ who will be greatly missed in both countries

Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreak and track the impact of government response

Majority-Muslim Kosovo will recognise Jewish state, while Serbia promises to relocate embassy to JerusalemIsrael scored two diplomatic gains on Friday when majority-Muslim Kosovo agreed to recognise the Jewish state and Serbia said it would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.The decisions came after a White House-brokered agreement between the two Balkan arch-rivals to normalise economic relations two decades after they fought a bitter war. Continue reading...

As Covid-19 wreaks havoc in aged care homes, demands are growing for providers to reveal how they use taxpayer dollarsPressure is mounting on the aged care sector and federal government to reveal how some $13bn in taxpayer funding, along with millions in new funding for Covid-19, is being spent to benefit residents.Guardian Australia analysis of the 10 aged care homes worst affected by coronavirus in Victoria shows that three are controlled by two large companies, which between them received more than $1.45bn in government funding over the past two years and paid out dividends to their shareholders totalling $77m. Continue reading...

First Nations Australians were deported to Papua New Guinea under ‘aliens’ power in constitutionThe continuing incarceration of at least 20 people claiming to be of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent in immigration detention centres in Australia appears unlawful and they may be entitled to compensation, legal experts say.A spokesperson from Australian Border Force said that so far only five “non-citizen non-aliens have been released from immigration detention”. Continue reading...

Australia’s telling of the Pacific war story is correctly replete with Japanese atrocities. But crimes against Japanese prisoners do not feature prominentlySeventy-five years after the end of the second world war in the Pacific, the human suffering of millions of combatants and civilians is easily overlooked in a binary focus on allied victory and Japanese surrender.Three-quarters of a century later, Japanese humiliation still simmers in politics and among families of the surrendered or dead. On the other side, meanwhile, countless were the returned soldiers and their families who have long harboured seething hatred for the Japanese. Continue reading...

Children aged between one and eight were found dead in beds in case that has shocked countryGerman prosecutors have said they will charge a 27-year-old woman with murder after five of her young children were found dead at their home in the western city of Solingen.Heribert Kaune-Gebhardt, a prosecutor in nearby Wuppertal, told reporters that postmortem examinations on the dead children between the ages of one and eight showed signs of sedation and suffocation, but it was still unclear how exactly they died. Continue reading...

Claudio Noce’s very personal picture is a beautiful mess that views the harsh adult world from a child’s perspectiveAs a child in the 1970s, writer-director Claudio Noce stood in the wings while a leftwing terrorist group – the Armed Proletarian Cells – targeted his father, Rome’s deputy chief of police. The trauma, he says, harried him all his life before finally finding a catharsis of sorts with the making of Padrenostro, which competes for the top prize here in Venice. This, Noce’s third feature, marks his moment of unburdening. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s a personal picture, agonised and self-questioning, almost to a fault.Noce’s alter-ego is Valerio (Mattia Garaci), an angelic-looking 10-year-old with a low-grade heart murmur and a penchant for solitary walks and wild flights of fancy. But his immediate surroundings feel horribly real. Wounded in an assassination attempt, his father Alfonso (Pierfrancesco Favino) now carries a handgun in his bag and flinches every time the front doorbell rings. Valerio isn’t sure what has happened or why, which naturally means that we’re in the dark, too. For most of its run, Padrenostro elects to view the harsh adult world from a child’s perspective. It’s like What Maisie Knew crossed with a supergrass gangster film. Continue reading...

Devolved parliaments increasingly at odds with Boris Johnson over quarantine restrictions

Search continues for other survivors from ship that hit trouble en route from New Zealand to ChinaA third crewman from a cargo ship carrying 6,000 cattle that capsized off south-west Japan has been found.A search plane spotted the Filipino crewman waving for help from a life raft about a mile off Kodakarajima, a small island in Japan’s southern Kagoshima prefecture. Rescuers also found an overturned orange lifeboat a little further off Kodakarajima, but no one was in it. Continue reading...

Critics say Abbott’s views on women and homosexuality and denial of climate crisis make him unfit for roleTony Abbott has been appointed as a UK trade adviser despite widespread concerns that misogynistic and homophobic comments and denial of the climate crisis have made him unfit to represent the country to the rest of the world.The announcement came shortly after Boris Johnson said that although he did not share Abbott’s views, he believed Abbott’s spell as Australian prime minister made him suitable for the job. Continue reading...

Hundreds gather for funeral of high-profile, outspoken victim of government’s hostile environmentHundreds of people gathered in a Wolverhampton carpark for the funeral of the Windrush campaigner Paulette Wilson, one of the most high-profile and outspoken victims of the government’s hostile environment who died unexpectedly in July, aged 64.A horsedrawn carriage brought her body to the New Testament Church of God, where Wilson had volunteered for years as a chef cooking food for the local homeless community. The two grey horses pulling the coffin wore red, green, black and yellow headdresses, marking her Jamaican and Rastafarian roots. Continue reading...

Though roads are getting busier, train and bus use is still down as ‘back to work’ message falls flat

Debt seen as stumbling block for release of British-Iranians including Nazanin Zaghari-RatcliffeThe defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged that he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes. Continue reading...

Moscow pressed over details of chemical weapons programme as Nato mulls next stepsRussia is under pressure to reveal details of its novichok chemical weapons programme after Nato called for an impartial international investigation into the “appalling” poisoning of Alexei Navalny.Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, convened a meeting of member states to discuss the latest findings from Germany on the Russian opposition leader, who collapsed last month on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. Continue reading...

Chinese government threatened woman when she resisted in move to suppress Muslim minority birth ratesA teacher coerced into giving classes in Xinjiang internment camps has described her forced sterilisation at the age of 50, under a government campaign to suppress birth rates of women from Muslim minorities.Qelbinur Sidik said the crackdown swept up not just women likely to fall pregnant, but those well beyond normal childbearing ages. Messages she got from local authorities said women aged 19 to 59 were expected to have intrauterine devices (IUDs) fitted or undergo sterilisation. Continue reading...

The gymnast has joined 400 sporting figures in protesting at the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko and police brutalityFor numerous bitter days in early August, Belarus went dark. After the rigged presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, tens of thousands of civilians took to the streets in peaceful protest, where they were met by state-sanctioned violence as the government killed the internet. Haunting stories continue to emerge of beatings directed by the government.As unrest endures at home, it has coincided with unprecedented sporting success abroad. At the US Open, five Belarusian players reached the second round and the former No 1 Victoria Azarenka smited the fifth seed, Aryna Sabalenka, in a grand Belarusian derby. Continue reading...

Why the chains and independents at the heart of Britain’s high streets are in deep trouble

Pop star’s lawyer suggests she appreciates fans’ help in challenging her father’s role as conservator of her affairsBritney Spears has pushed for greater transparency in the court hearings regarding the legal arrangement that has managed her life and finances for more than a decade, and in doing so appeared to endorse the #FreeBritney movement.Since Spears’s breakdown in 2007, her father, Jamie (known legally as James Spears), has primarily been at the helm of a conservatorship that means the 38-year-old must seek permission before making significant decisions related to her affairs, a setup that is usually reserved for elderly and infirm people with little hope of recovery. He is thought to receive around $130k (£97k) annually from Spears’s estate for his role. Continue reading...

Pitt Club, founded in 1835, faces financial crisis after losing rental income from Pizza Express

Khalifa Haftar challenged in Virginia by relatives of military leader’s alleged victimsA $50m damages claim lodged in a court in Virginia alleges that the Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who holds US citizenship, is guilty of war crimes including starvation sieges that forced families to eat grass and tree bark to survive.The claim against Haftar by two relatives of his alleged victims is an attempt to make him answerable somewhere for the crimes he is accused of perpetrating as head of the Libyan National Army, the major military force in the east of the country, which since 2014 has been in conflict with the Tripoli-based government in the west. Continue reading...

‘Not everyone has to get on the bus for the bus to leave the station,’ Scott Morrison says, playing down dissent in national cabinet

Vulnerable groups like senior citizens face the possibility of being left behind – as fears of the coronavirus remain for themMarion Coleman walks six long blocks from her Athens, Georgia, home to a nearby McDonald’s several times a week. While Coleman, 73, likes the sausage biscuits and other breakfast items, her outings to this fast-food restaurant are very much about feeding her soul, not her body.Like many other US senior citizens, Coleman has been avoiding most social activity because of Covid-19. Going to McDonald’s on foot means she can see friends without riding a bus. Coleman, who believes “strongly” in wearing a mask, recognizes the risk – but fears there’s also danger in staying home. Continue reading...

Although Portugal remains on the safe list, for English tourists at least, rumours to the contrary spark panic and holiday cancellationsNoel Josephides sounds weary. Two weeks ago when the UK government added Portugal to the travel corridor list, the chairman of Sunvil issued a statement saying he was delighted to start selling holidays to Portugal again, “just in time for the last couple of weeks of the peak summer season, but also in time for the glorious autumnal months of September and October, right into November.”By the beginning of this week the rumour was that the country’s brief spell as a “safe destination” was about to come to an end as coronavirus cases in the country went above 20 per 100,000 people – the level at which the UK government considers triggering quarantine conditions. On Tuesday, the UK ambassador to Portugal fuelled speculation that the country would soon revert to the quarantine list when he warned that air bridges can “change quickly”. The hint that the 20 August decision could be reversed was enough to unsettle British holidaymakers in Portugal and spark a rush to get back to the UK before the dreaded deadline. EasyJet sold out of all its flights from Faro, which serves the Algarve, to airports in Britain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Continue reading...

Victoria reports nine deaths in the past 24 hours and 50 people added to total who died in aged care facilities in July and August. Follow live news and updates today

Firms trading with EU want ministers to address major gaps in supply chain preparationsBusinesses trading with the EU are demanding an urgent meeting with government ministers over concerns there are significant gaps in the UK’s Brexit border preparations.Eight logistics organisations have written to say they fear the supply chain that keeps supermarket shelves stocked daily will be severely disrupted next year if issues are not resolved before Brexit. Continue reading...

UN experts call on China to explain apparent breaches of human rights obligations

Firefighters called to scene after blaze tears through industrial building in HooA huge fire has torn through an industrial building near Rochester in Kent after a “big, big explosion”.Onlookers reported a mushroom cloud and secondary explosion at the scene in Hoo as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. Continue reading...

Dante Addug called his partner as water entered the Gulf Livestock 1 cargo ship but family has not heard from him sinceThe last time the captain of the Gulf Livestock 1 spoke to his partner, Typhoon Maysak was battering the ship and water was already flowing in. It was 8.30pm on Tuesday.“He informed her that water had entered the ship. The last thing he said was he will go to the bridge to check the situation,” Maya Addug-Sanchez, the captain’s sister, told the Guardian. Addug’s family hasn’t heard from him since. Continue reading...

Five women affected by child marriage tell their stories – and of their struggles to protect others