Target of just 15% reduction in incarceration for Indigenous adults comes days after Council of Attorneys-General decided not to raise age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14

The anti-racism protests in Portland appeared to be dwindling in size until Donald Trump sent in federal officers to confront them, reports the Guardian’s Chris McGrealThis episode first aired on Today in Focus, the Guardian’s global daily news podcast.Anti-racism protesters have repeatedly clashed with federal officers in the US city of Portland, Oregon in recent days. They have continued nightly protests ever since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in May. Continue reading...

Alok Sharma says new law will ‘ensure furloughed employees are not short-changed’

Move to control spread of coronavirus abandoned after widespread public anger

Latest updates: how has Covid-19 progressed where you live? Check the week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern IrelandThe map shows local authorities where the number of cases has increased week-on-week and where it has fallen. Some of this is due to natural fluctuations, especially in areas where there are very few cases, and so a rise from 1 to 2 is a doubling. Increased testing also means that more cases may be being detected than previously, although the impact of this between one week and the next is likely to be slight. Continue reading...

UK and EU at odds over role of European court of justice in settling disputesBoris Johnson is facing a major Brexit test with the future of Eurotunnel operations at stake, it has emerged.The EU wants the UK to drop its opposition to a role for the European court of justice in British affairs to ensure trains keep running between France and the UK after Brexit is implemented on 1 January. Continue reading...

Women attempting to flee the country’s economic collapse are in desperate straits, stranded at borders and forced into sex work, say NGOsThe family had nothing at home, says mother of six Luisa Hernández, 30, from Zulia state, Venezuela. “To see your children grow up without food, without anything, is unbearable.“Eating from rubbish bins to survive was no life, so we left. But, now with the pandemic, we are in limbo, we are stuck in Colombia, and hungry again. We have gone from one crisis to another.” Continue reading...

The first retrospective show since the death of the celebrated photographer is full of striking shots of performers at their most outrageous

What are the restrictions within Victoria and the border closures with NSW and Queensland? How far can I travel, and how many people can I have over at my house? Untangle Australia’s Covid-19 laws and guidelines with our guide

Child dies after surge of cases that health minister linked to single restaurant offering cheap meal dealA food poisoning outbreak in Jordan has hit more than 800 people and killed a child, all of whom ate cut-price shawarma from a restaurant outside Amman, the health ministry has said.The owner of the restaurant selling the popular rotisserie meat and bread snacks in the Baqa’a district north-west of the capital was arrested, local media reported. Continue reading...

Fewer than 100 of StubHub’s 650 staff are understood to be facing redundancyTicket resale company StubHub is to close or shrink offices around the world as it reels from the pandemic, which has shut down concert venues and theatres and forced sports events to be held behind closed doors.In an email seen by the Guardian, addressed to staff known as “Stubbers”, the world’s largest ticketing company said it would be shutting its offices in the Asia Pacific and Latin America regions. Continue reading...

Amnesty calls for action to help victims overcome trauma, as families return home to landscape littered with landminesChild survivors of Islamic State captivity and their families have been left to fend for themselves when dealing with lasting trauma and health complications, Amnesty International said on Thursday.Almost 2,000 Yazidi children living in the Kurdish regional government area have been “effectively abandoned”, according to a new report highlighting their struggles to recover from the violence inflicted by Isis. Continue reading...

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has imposed stage three restrictions across metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire for six weeks from 8 July

The health department now recommends masks where community transmission of coronavirus is occurring and physical distancing is difficult, and Victoria has made face masks mandatory in the state. From washable cloth face masks to reusable ones and how to wear them, here’s what you need to know

More than a dozen ‘black rain’ plaintiffs died during legal battle to prove people living further away also suffered radiation exposure in 1945A court in Japan has for the first time recognised dozens of people who were exposed to radioactive “black rain” as survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, even though they lived outside the area hit hardest by the attack in August 1945.The Hiroshima district court said the 84 plaintiffs, who are suffering from illnesses linked to radiation exposure, were entitled to the same medical benefits as survivors who lived closer to where the bomb struck. Continue reading...

New centre in Greek city will be lifeline for Sephardic Jews, mostly descendants of Spanish exilesFive centuries after they were expelled from Spain and eight decades after they were almost annihilated in the Holocaust, the small community of Sephardic Jews that lives on in the Greek city of Thessaloniki is looking to its past to help safeguard its future.On Tuesday, Thessaloniki’s Jewish community signed a deal with the Spanish government’s Instituto Cervantes to create a small centre where people will be taught modern Spanish while also learning about Sephardic culture and the exiles’ still-spoken language, Ladino. Continue reading...

Militants to halt fighting over Muslim holiday following deal to release 5000 combatantsAfghanistan’s stuttering peace process has received fresh impetus with the announcement of an Eid ceasefire, and a government pledge to complete the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, a pre-condition for direct talks.US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, in Kabul as part of a regional push to get talks back on track, has also suggested the ceasefire could be extended if the militant fighters are released by Friday, local media reported. Continue reading...

Pat Turner says four priority reforms, which include housing, early childhood and justice, will make a real improvement to Indigenous people’s livesThe new national agreement on Closing the Gap has been released. The culmination of months of negotiation between Aboriginal peak organisations and governments, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, says it is “built on mutual trust, shared responsibility, dignity and respect”.“This is a real turning point in Indigenous affairs, but the real work starts tomorrow,” the Coalition of Peaks lead convener, Pat Turner, said at the launch. Continue reading...

A young bird adored by fans around the globe via YouTube will soon leave its nest – but it needs a name firstA royal albatross chick in New Zealand whose life has attracted millions of views via a live YouTube channel has found fame – but has no name.Now its keepers are seeking to change that, as the seven-month-old female – or toroa in the Māori language te reo – prepares to leave the nest for a journey that will take her away for the next four years. Continue reading...

As coronavirus community transmissions rise in New South Wales, here are the current hotspots and what to do if you’ve visited them

Attendance limited to 10,000 people already residing in Saudi Arabia, rather than the usual 2 million including from abroad, amid Covid-19 restrictions

Kadar Shaikh was shocked by price of his treatment at private clinic, so he turned his offices into a facility offering free treatment

Australia rejects freedom of information request for ‘reference paper’ that touched on Wuhan laboratory theoryIt was described as a “bombshell dossier” that detailed China’s “assault on international transparency” and gave some weight to Donald Trump’s disputed claims that the coronavirus may have leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan.But the document that formed the basis of tabloid reports in Australia – and triggered a flurry of follow-up stories in the US and elsewhere – may not be released to the public for three years or more. Continue reading...

Premier Gladys Berejiklian takes swipe at Queensland counterpart over surprise border closure as cluster in Potts Point expands

In 2019 there were 44,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS after years of austerityThousands of nurse training places and probation officer jobs will be created as part of a new government recruitment drive for the public sector.The Ministry of Justice is hiring 1,000 new probation officers just months after it was announced the service would be brought back under government control after a disastrous spell of part-privatisation. Continue reading...

Trump repeats his promise that the virus will disappear as US passes another somber milestone of 150,000 confirmed deathsSix months of coronavirus in the US, six months of Trump denials.As the US passed another somber landmark, with more than 150,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the grim toll stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s repeated promise that under his leadership the disease would simply disappear. Continue reading...

Thursday: Queensland closes its borders to residents of the NSW capital. Plus, a mechanic sings the praises of simple, silent electric carsGood morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 30 July. Continue reading...

Six months after first cases emerged in US, hospitals are under strain in multiple states

Isolation period could be increased by three days as concern over second wave ‘very high’ in NHS

Grant Shapps returned to the UK on Wednesday after curtailing his holiday in Spain to deal with the fallout from the government’s decision to impose quarantine restrictions on travellers arriving from the country. The transport secretary said he felt sorry for people whose holidays had been affected, but defended the government’s decision, saying Spain’s rate of new infections was now as high as it had been at the peak of the crisis

Sanctions designed to discourage anyone from funding Syrian regimeHafez Bashar al-Assad, the eldest son of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, is named in the latest list of 14 senior Syrian regime officials and entities sanctioned by the US State Department under the so-called Caesar Act.The designations, focusing on the “barbarous First Division of the Syrian Army”, are the second wave of sanctions to be applied under the act following the first move by the US State Department on 17 June. Continue reading...

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, levels of hunger and poverty are going to rise. Given this, the abolition of DfID is a serious mistakeThis week’s warning from Unicef is stark. Without immediate action, children under five will die in their tens of thousands in the coming year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UN agency estimates that an additional 6.7 million children will become dangerously under-nourished unless at least $2.4bn can be mobilised. The risk is that 10,000 more children a month will die.Hunger is not confined to poor countries: the call for 1.5 million more children in England to get free school meals is evidence of that. Ministers ought to act at home. But acute hunger is a much more acute problem in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. What’s more, Unicef is far from alone in pointing out the vulnerability of the world’s poorest people to coronavirus. The World Bank is pencilling in the first increase in poverty in two decades. The International Monetary Fund says deep recessions in advanced countries are having a marked impact of remittances – worth $360bn in 2018 – into low income and fragile states. Continue reading...

Authorities were tipped off that militants planned to destabilise country, according to state newsBelarusian authorities said they had detained dozens of Russian private military contractors days before Belarus’s presidential vote, a sign of escalating tensions between the two neighbours.Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who is seeking a sixth term in office in the 9 August vote, has repeatedly accused Russia of trying to force Belarus to abandon its post-Soviet independence. Throughout his 26-year rule, the 65-year-old has relied on Russian subsidies and political support but has fiercely resisted Moscow’s efforts to gain control over the country’s economic assets. Continue reading...

Céline Sciamma’s 2011 sophomore effort has become an unlikely hit thanks to South Korea’s own feminist reckoning – and the clever use of merchandise

Cellar reportedly found on plot used by suspect in disappearance of British girl from Portuguese hotel in 2007German police searching an allotment plot used bythe prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have reportedly found a cellar once believed to have belonged to a garden house which was torn down at the end of 2007.German media have been reporting on the apparent development, though police have yet to comment. Continue reading...

Moore will take over as director general of Secret Intelligence Service from Sir Alex YoungerBritain’s former ambassador to Turkey has been named as the next director general of MI6 to replace Sir Alex Younger, who is due to step aside at the end of the year.Richard Moore, currently political director at the Foreign Office, is the surprise pick by Downing Street, who had been expected to favour Tom Hurd, a senior Home Office official and Eton schoolmate of Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

Chief executive of NHS Confederation tells MPs staff are ‘exhausted’; Oliver Dowden tells people to book holidays but be prepared to quarantine

Both sides seeking deal to secure continuous trade once Brexit implemented on 1 JanuaryThe UK is close to sealing a “continuity” trade deal with Japan that will mirror that of the EU pact that Britain will no longer be part of next January.But in order to strike an agreement in time for it to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has had to drop her ambitions for preferential treatment for British food exports. Continue reading...

Tahir Ahmed Naseem is latest victim of violence connected to blasphemy lawsA Pakistani man on trial for blasphemy has been shot dead in a courtroom, in the latest violent incident connected with the country’s blasphemy laws.Tahir Ahmed Naseem had been in prison since his arrest in 2018, allegedly after claiming he was a prophet. He is a member of the Ahmedi sect, which is persecuted in Pakistan where they have officially been declared non-Muslims. Continue reading...

Exclusive: closure of borders means biological parents from other countries have not been able to meet their childrenAs many as 1,000 babies born to surrogate mothers in Russia for foreign families have been left stranded in the country by the coronavirus pandemic and closure of international borders, the Guardian has been told.The babies, some born as far back as February, are being cared for mainly by hired caregivers in rented apartments in Moscow, St Petersburg, and other Russian cities. Continue reading...

Duchess of Sussex suing owner of Mail on Sunday and Mail Online in privacy battleLawyers for the Duchess of Sussex have claimed five female friends who spoke anonymously to a US magazine to defend her against British tabloid bullying are entitled to a “super-charged right of confidentiality” as she fought to protect their identities in her privacy battle against the Mail on Sunday.Forcing her to make public their names was an “unacceptable price to pay” for pursuing her legal action over publication of extracts from a private letter she wrote to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, 75, the high court in London heard. Continue reading...

European nations fear extension of arms sale ban would result in Iran leaving 2015 nuclear dealThe US may be forced to accept a UN code of conduct restricting conventional arms sales to Iran, since it is struggling to win unanimous support at the UN security council for a formal extension of the existing UN ban, which expires in October.European nations fear a formal extension of the ban would result in Iran leaving the nuclear deal. Continue reading...

Critics of the Helms amendment, which currently prevents the use of aid to fund abortion services abroad, say it is ‘deeply rooted in racism’The first bill to repeal a US law preventing aid from funding abortion services overseas was introduced to congress on Wednesday.Democratic congressswoman Jan Schakowsky said the Helms amendment, a policy introduced in 1973, was “deeply rooted in racism” and must be replaced to allow US money to be used to support safe abortion services worldwide. Continue reading...

The death of George Floyd in the US sparked the UK’s biggest anti-racism protests in centuries. We spoke to 50 young people at the heart of these rallies Continue reading...

First local case in three months reported over the weekend in holiday spot of Da Nang

Actor says when he was younger he wasn’t told Palestinians lived on land that became the Jewish stateSeth Rogen has said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” as a young Jewish person, stoking controversy around the country’s sometimes fraught relationship with many North American Jews.The Canadian-US actor, who attended Jewish camp and whose parents met on a kibbutz in Israel, said the fact that the Jewish state was created on land where Palestinians were living had always been omitted. Continue reading...

The 47-year-old man was found dead in his cell on Wednesday, authorities sayWestern Australia has recorded its third Aboriginal death in custody in less than two months after a prisoner in the state’s north took his own life.Authorities have confirmed the 47-year-old man was found dead in his cell at Roebourne regional prison, 500km south-west of Broome, on Wednesday. Continue reading...

This engaging, philosophical film unpicks the challenges faced by a young mother trying to reconnect with the life she had before her son’s birthA woman leaves her boyfriend to visit her mum in Buenos Aires, taking their three-year-old son with her – not sure yet if it’s a holiday or a breakup. She hasn’t worked since her son was born and is having an emotional and intellectual crisis. She feels almost non-existent. “I don’t see myself. Who am I?”This is an elegant, elusive debut from the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, who picks away at the fantasy that motherhood leads to instant fulfilment. Her film is like an arthouse version of the sitcoms Motherland and Catastrophe, with fewer laughs and more philosophical introspection. It has the feel of a feminist essay that has been semi-dramatised for screen – with Paula starring as a fictional version of herself and her real-life mum and son Ramón playing themselves. Continue reading...

The musician, 77, exiled to London under Brazil’s military dictatorship says he fears the president’s ‘ultra-reactionary bunch’ will not let go of power easilyHalf a century has passed since agents of the Brazilian dictatorship appeared on the doorstep of the music legend Caetano Veloso and announced: “You’d better bring your toothbrush.”Six months of detention and confinement later he was forced into European exile, spending the next two and a half years as a resident of Chelsea, West Kensington and Golders Green, where he would rehearse what remains his most celebrated album, Transa, in the vestry of a local church. Continue reading...