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Rocky Marciano Price had been looking for lone women in wood in AccringtonA 17-year-old boy who was found guilty of the murder of a teaching assistant can be

Lagoon ‘liberated’ as firms announce switch to Trieste and Genoa, at least until end of yearCruise ship opponents are planning a party in Venice after two Italian cruise operators announced they were dropping the city from their 2020 itineraries.Activists with No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships) said the lagoon had been “liberated” after MSC Crociere and Costa Crociere decided their vessels would instead set sail from Trieste or Genoa when services resume on 16 August and 6 September respectively. Continue reading...

By getting bogged down with external conditions, you can miss some beautiful moments• Time to reset: more brilliant ideas to remake the worldIn 2010, I walked 400 miles to the North Pole with my two teammates, Linda and Ali. It was -40C. All our conversations were about navigation, our health, the situation we were in. One day, I found a baby musk ox stuck on a ledge, and helped it to safety. For three days, this thing was glued to me. I remember we were sitting drinking soup, and it was looking at me as if I were its mum. We laughed for the first time in about two weeks. We were just three people outside, enjoying the space we were in, rather than being against the elements.There’s a lesson in this as we emerge from the dark cloud that is Covid-19. By getting bogged down with external conditions, you can miss some beautiful moments. Our new normal is going to involve spending a lot more time outdoors – for socialising, meals out, performances or outdoor schooling. In the UK, we’re good at adapting to lifestyle changes, and this time will be no different. But as we move into autumn and winter, there will be a sharp learning curve. Continue reading...

The ‘mute grab’ to become the ‘Weddle grab’ after first person to do the move in 1981

After the antisemitism rows of the Corbyn era, there are concerns that black voters are now being pushed awayWhen Keir Starmer approved apologies and six-figure damages last month for former Labour officials who had accused the party of antisemitism, he probably hoped to draw a line under a damaging issue that had dogged the party under its former leader Jeremy Corbyn.But rather than solving Labour’s problems, the settlements – regarded by some on the party’s left as principally about repudiating Corbyn’s leadership – could transform one racism row into another. Continue reading...

Billionaire says Queensland supreme court has registered two arbitration awards, protecting them under the constitution from Western Australia’s legislationWestern Australia’s government is working to push through extraordinary laws to head off Clive Palmer’s potential $30bn claim against the state, but the businessman says a Queensland court decision makes the WA move unconstitutional.Palmer has also sought an injunction in the federal court requiring the WA government to withdraw from parliament its unprecedented legislation which would amend a 2002 state agreement with Mineralogy. Continue reading...

Dispute over exploration of energy reserves in eastern Mediterranean escalatesGreece has placed its military forces on high alert, recalling its naval and air force offers from holiday, as tensions with Turkey over exploration of potentially lucrative offshore energy reserves escalate in the eastern Mediterranean.With Ankara dispatching the Oruç Reis, a drillship escorted by gunboats, to conduct seismic research in contested waters, Athens stepped up calls for Turkey to stop the “illegal” activities, intensifying a diplomatic offensive that has prompted the US, EU, France and Israel to express their growing anxiety over the situation. Continue reading...

Regulator has launched legal action against James Mawhinney and Mayfair 101, which has taken $140m from investorsThe Australian Securities and Investments Commission fears the man behind troubled efforts to redevelop Queensland’s cyclone-ravaged Dunk Island, James Mawhinney, may leave the country, a court has heard.Asic also fears assets belonging to Mawhinney’s investment group, Mayfair 101, may be moved, counsel for the regulator, Jonathan Moore QC, told the federal court on Thursday. Continue reading...

The US president’s hair-washing complaints have prompted a proposal on easing of shower-pressure standards.The Trump administration presented rule changes that would allow showerheads to boost water pressure, after Donald Trump complained that bathroom fixtures do not work to his liking.The Department of Energy plan followed Trump's comments last month at a White House event on rolling back regulations where he said he believed water does not come out fast enough from fixtures. ‘My hair … I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect,' he said.

Among the many homes and buildings damaged by the Beirut explosion were the Sursock Museum and Palace. The 19th-century palace was once one of Beirut’s grandest town houses, and the mansion housing the museum was left to the city of Beirut in 1952 Continue reading...

NSW authorities are concerned about a number of Covid-19 cases in the past six weeks where the source was unknown. Follow live

Alexander Vikhor left in van for hours after being detained in Gomel, mother tells local newsBelarus has confirmed that a young man has died in police custody, the second death since mass protests began on Sunday against the country’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko.Alexander Vikhor, 25, died after being detained on Sunday in the city of Gomel in south-east Belarus during countrywide protests over accusations of mass vote-rigging in presidential elections. Protests continued for a fourth night on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Animals died of hunger and thirst after 58,000 returned to Sudan due to quarantine compromiseAround 3,000 sheep sent back from Saudi Arabia by ship to Sudan have died of hunger and thirst according to a Sudanese government minister. Some drowned on the voyage.Saudi Arabia returned 58,000 sheep to Sudan after finding out that quarantine procedures in Sudan had been compromised, leaving some animals without vaccination against diseases including Rift Valley fever. Continue reading...

Satellite images of the MV Wakashio shipwreck off the south-east coast of Mauritius reveal the damage as the Japanese bulk carrier leaked an estimated 1,000 tonnes of oil. The ship, owned by Nagashiki Shipping and operated by Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd, struck a coral reef on 25 July and began leaking oil last week, raising fears of a major ecological crisis Continue reading...

FSA report finds food insecurity has shot up, bringing risk of malnutrition and obesity

Support for abused men, trans women and non-binary people is urgently neededYousef, a 28-year-old gay man, was raped by Syrian intelligence agents who had detained him for participating in protests during the conflict in Syria. He fled to Lebanon, but found only limited services to help him deal with the traumatic aftermath. By the time I interviewed him, he was resettled in the Netherlands. Geographically speaking, he was away from all the violence, but it still haunted him. “I look behind me when I am walking,” he told me. “I still wake up at night. It [the trauma] is not over.”Yousef is one of dozens of sexual violence survivors from Syria whom I interviewed for Human Rights Watch. I found that since the beginning of the Syrian conflict men and boys – in addition to women and girls – have been subjected to sexual violence, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, by both government agents and non-government actors. Continue reading...

Premier Daniel Andrews reports eight more deaths and the lowest number of new coronavirus cases for more than two weeks

With negotiations set to begin, women have been sharing their ‘red lines’ on the progress they refuse to see negotiatedFarahnaz Forotan was three when the Taliban had arrived in Kabul. It was 1996. “I have this memory of a snowy day, I was sitting on my mother’s lap, in a minibus, and she was crying. I didn’t understand why she was crying,” Forotan says. It was the day her family became refugees.“It was the civil war, and we had to leave our home and country to live in Iran – alive, but living in pain and facing discrimination,” she says. Continue reading...

Fishing time in first half of 2020 almost double that in whole of last year, Greenpeace saysSupertrawlers vastly stepped up their fishing in the UK’s protected waters during the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, while most of the UK’s smaller vessels were confined to port.The amount of time supertrawlers spent fishing in marine protected areas in the first half of this year was nearly double that spent in the waters in the whole of last year, according to a Greenpeace investigation. There were 23 supertrawlers catching fish in UK protected areas in the period, none of them UK-owned. Continue reading...

Over 10,000 blazes seen so far in August, with response of President Bolsonaro condemned as ineffectiveThe Amazon has seen the worst start to the fire season in a decade, with 10,136 fires spotted in the first 10 days of August, a 17% rise on last year.Analysis of Brazilian government figures by Greenpeace showed fires increasing by 81% in federal reserves compared with the same period last year. Coming a year after soaring Amazon fires caused an international crisis, the new figures raised fears this year’s fire season could be even worse than last year’s. Continue reading...

Shops start stockpiling and charities helping with financial hardship expect flood of calls as PM warns outbreak will get worse

New Zealand leader has said Auckland’s Covid-19 outbreak will get worse before it gets better, and warned of extended lockdowns after the country reported the first new cases in 102 days without community transmission. Ardern stressed New Zealand’s approach of going hard early remained their best chance of slowing the spread and urged caution over growing misinformation around coronavirus

The UK cultural sector, so obsessed with being ‘world leading’, is standing on the brink. It needs to broaden its gazeIt’s a painful time to tell stories about the arts. This week, hundreds of venues across the UK were lit up in red – not in an inspired display of creativity, but as a cry for help as arts venues find themselves on the brink of collapse.The protest culminated in the iconic chimney at London’s Tate Modern art gallery being made bright red, and illuminated with the words “Throw Us a Line” – a reference to the 1m jobs at risk in the live events sector following the Covid-19 pandemic and shutdown. A report from the digital, culture, media and sport select committee warned last month that the UK now faces the prospect of becoming a “cultural wasteland”. Continue reading...

They are beacons of western civilisation. But, says an explosive new book, the designs of Europe’s greatest buildings were plundered from the Islamic world – twin towers, rose windows, vaulted ceilings and allAs Notre-Dame cathedral was engulfed by flames last year, thousands bewailed the loss of this great beacon of western civilisation. The ultimate symbol of French cultural identity, the very heart of the nation, was going up in smoke. But Middle East expert Diana Darke was having different thoughts. She knew that the origins of this majestic gothic pile lay not in the pure annals of European Christian history, as many have always assumed, but in the mountainous deserts of Syria, in a village just west of Aleppo to be precise.“Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from Syria’s Qalb Lozeh fifth-century church,” Darke tweeted on the morning of 16 April, as the dust was still settling in Paris. “Crusaders brought the ‘twin tower flanking the rose window’ concept back to Europe in the 12th century.” Continue reading...

Svetlana Alexievich warns of ‘civil war’ after unrest that followed Sunday’s disputed election resultBelarusian Nobel prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich has condemned police violence against protesters in her country and urged Alexander Lukashenko to go peacefully.The 72-year-old author won the 2015 Nobel literature prize for her work chronicling the horrors of war and life under the repressive Soviet regime including the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Continue reading...

Pro-democracy activist says he did not expect to be arrested so soon given the global outcry, and that it suggested chaos in the ranksJimmy Lai has said he was surprised to be arrested so quickly, and suggested there was “great disorder” among Chinese and Hong Kong authorities about how to handle the territory’s national security law.The 71-year-old media tycoon and prominent pro-democracy figure was arrested on Monday, on suspicion of committing foreign collusion crimes in breach of Beijing’s national security law, and conspiracy to defraud. Continue reading...

Bolivia considers a pragmatic, if not macabre, option as it struggles to keep pace with Covid-19 deathsAs surging Covid-19 cases across Latin America leave cemeteries and funeral homes struggling to keep pace, engineers in Bolivia have come up with a solution as pragmatic as it is macabre: a mobile crematorium.The five-metre by two-and-half-metre oven is small enough to fit on to a trailer, and is powered by locally produced liquefied petroleum gas – making it a cheap option for families who cannot afford a funeral service. Continue reading...

Expats say UK government’s lack of clarity on coronavirus travel restrictions puts livelihoods at risk

Jacinda Ardern sound ominous tone, with expectation of a long lockdown for the country’s biggest city

Glass-walled booths in Seoul won’t let you in unless your temperature is normal

Exclusive: email sent to health workers by Safer Care Victoria says 1,835 workers had been infected with virus at 8 August

Restaurant diners told to order one dish less than number of people under new system criticised as overly controllingThe Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has launched a campaign targeting a new enemy of the country: food waste.“Waste is shameful and thriftiness is honourable,” Xi said in a speech published on Tuesday, describing the amount of food that goes to waste in the country as “shocking and distressing”, according to the state news agency Xinhua. Continue reading...

Home Office says 14 people were flown out, while 19 of those due to be removed had their tickets deferredA charter flight to remove asylum seekers who recently arrived in the UK on small boats took off on Wednesday morning carrying 14 people, the Home Office said, despite last-minute high court actions and other interventions just hours before takeoff.Nineteen people due to fly did not board the plane. The Home Office said 14 people were placed on the charter flight destined for France and Germany. Continue reading...

Heatwave continues to cause disruption as flooding and storm warnings issuedThe UK has had its longest stretch of temperatures exceeding 34C since the 1960s, as warnings of thunderstorms and heavy rain remain in place across the country.The Met Office said the scorching temperatures were recorded in parts of southern England for the sixth day in a row – the first time Britain has experienced such a spell since 1961. Continue reading...

In the end it took £400m of attacking talent, 93 minutes of increasingly frantic football, and a man who mustered up five goals in a single year at Stoke to wrench a thrilling Champions League quarter-final the way of Paris Saint-Germain.It had to be Neymar, one way or another. The world’s most expensive footballer had played for much of the game like a man trapped inside another kind of storyline, finding space fluently but shooting at goal like a man wearing wooden clogs. Continue reading...

Passenger, driver and conductor killed after four carriages leave track in flood-hit areaThree people have died after a passenger train derailed near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire following a night of thunderstorms and torrential rainfall.The three dead were the driver, conductor and a passenger. Six other people were taken to hospital for treatment. Their injuries are not believed to be serious. Continue reading...

Moves comes because people who may have recovered from virus before they died were still counted in total number

Methodology change brings England in line with rest of UK; pupils caught up in Glasgow coronavirus cluster

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya becomes the latest to crumble under government pressure

Man suspected of setting fire to car in Florida among trio charged by US federal prosecutors in singer’s sexual abuse caseFederal prosecutors announced charges on Wednesday against three men accused of threatening and intimidating women who have accused the R&B singer R Kelly of abuse, including one man suspected of setting fire to a vehicle in Florida.A longtime friend of the indicted singer offered to pay a victim $500,000 to keep her from cooperating in Kelly’s prosecution, authorities said, while a manager and adviser of Kelly threatened to release sexually explicit photographs of a woman who sued Kelly. Continue reading...

Raúl Castro in fact played a central role in shaping the revolution, making his 2008 election perfectly logical, write Prof Par Kumaraswami and Prof Antoni Kapcia

Boy, 17, killed Lindsay Birbeck, 47, after she went for a walk in woods near her homeA 17-year-old boy has been found guilty of the murder of a teaching assistant who was found buried in a shallow grave at the back of a cemetery after going on an afternoon walk.The body of Lindsay Birbeck, 47, a mother of two, was discovered wrapped in two plastic bags in Accrington cemetery in Lancashire on 24 August last year. Continue reading...

The Reclaim Her Name project, marking 25 years of the Women’s prize for fiction, will introduce titles including Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans

Opposition leaders jailed or driven out of country amid crackdown on protests over election resultsAuthorities in Belarus say they have arrested more than 6,000 people during three nights of violently suppressed demonstrations against vote-rigging in Sunday’s disputed presidential election, as more footage and accounts emerged of police beating and violently detaining protesters.Opposition leaders have been jailed and driven out of the country in a massive crackdown following the election, which the election commission said was won in a landslide by President Alexander Lukashenko. Continue reading...

Four-year-old Amira is back with her parents – but challenges lie ahead for them and many other familiesFour-year-old Amira Hammoud used to love fireworks, asking her grandfather to set them off for her whenever he could. After the explosion that decimated Beirut last week, now even the sound of a fork clattering on the table is enough to make her scream with terror. Traumatised, she has become aggressive and clingy, refusing to let adults leave the room.But she has at least been reunited with her mother, Hiba, after seven days apart – a small blessing in the midst of Lebanon’s national tragedy. Continue reading...

Closely watched talks appear to be stalling as reported €10m offer is dismissedNamibia has rejected an German offer of compensation for the mass murder of tens of thousands of indigenous people more than a century ago.German occupiers in Namibia almost destroyed the Herero and Nama peoples between 1904 and 1908 as they consolidated their rule in the new colony in south-west Africa. Some historians have described the bloodshed as the first genocide of the 20th century. Continue reading...

New policy will rule out future loans and guarantees made through UK Export FinanceBoris Johnson is poised to sign off new rules barring the UK government’s chief foreign lender from offering financial support to foreign fossil fuel projects.The new policy, which could come as soon as this week, will rule out future loans and financial guarantees for polluting projects overseas through the UK’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance, just weeks after it agreed to a £1bn financial package to support work on a gas project in Mozambique. Continue reading...

Emergency services have been called to a major train derailment near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, where smoke could be seen billowing from the track amid reports of an engine fire and serious injuries.Four passenger carriages came off the track at Carmont, just west of Stonehaven, as a Scotrail high-speed train travelled from Aberdeen to Glasgow Queen Street.About 30 emergency vehicles, including an air ambulance, were reported to be attending the scene, where some witnesses suggested on social media that the train had fallen down an embankment after running into a landslip

There’s nothing wrong with being proud of our national dishes, but focusing on cheese makes us look ridiculousThere are differing visions of Britain. You hear it in the way we talk about the second world war: the nation split into those who think we were fighting Nazis and those who think we were fighting Germans. Patriots have long looked at their country and cherrypicked the parts that appeal. To some, being British is about the armed forces and the royal family. To others, it is the BBC and the NHS. To Liz Truss, national identity seems to be largely about cheese.In 2014, Truss, then environment secretary, gave a mesmerising address to the Conservative party conference that must rank as one of the slowest speeches in modern political history. If you watch the video, everyone in it seems to be on a time delay, despite the fact they’re in the same room. But it isn’t just the awkward pauses, it’s also the tone: Truss delivering her early punchlines with the dreamy, otherworldly air of Mr Burns from The Simpsons that time he turned radioactive and kept appearing in the woods. If you judge the quality of a speech by how confused the applause is, this one takes some beating. Continue reading...

Netflix now accounts for quarter of all actors’ earnings as the Rock takes home biggest pay packet for second year runningDwayne Johnson, the wrestler turned actor formerly known as the Rock, has again topped Forbes’s list of the highest-paid actors having made an estimated $87.5m (£67m) in the fiscal year ending June 2020.Next on the list were Ryan Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg, with $71.5m and $58m respectively. Save for Johnson, the names mark a considerable contrast to those on last year’s top 10, which was dominated by the stars of the Marvel franchise. Continue reading...