World news | The Guardian

Police chief’s apology for way laws against homosexuality were enforced described as ‘long overdue’

Government says Slovenian plans to ‘standardise’ use of name threaten traditional producers in ModenaThe Italian government is launching infringement proceedings against Slovenia in an attempt to defend the authenticity of its famed, geographically protected balsamic vinegar.Relations between the two countries turned sour last year when Slovenia notified the European Commission of its plans to “standardise” its vinegar production, essentially seeking to market any wine vinegar mixed with concentrated fruit juice or must as “balsamic vinegar”. Continue reading...

Kate Greville told police Manchester United star ‘flipped’ when she saw him message another womanRyan Giggs kicked his naked girlfriend out of a hotel room in Dubai when she accused him of messaging another woman, his assault trial has heard.The former Manchester United footballer was on holiday in Dubai visiting Kate Greville when the alleged incident occurred, a jury at Manchester crown court was told. Continue reading...

China’s foreign ministry said Australia should ‘respect China’s core interests’ and ‘avoid creating new obstacles for China-Australia ties’

NSW upper house inquiry identifies problems with the SES and says grant processes were ‘confusing’

A representative for the actor has described her as being in an ‘extreme critical condition’ following the incident on FridayAnne Heche has not regained consciousness since shortly after she crashed her car in Los Angeles on Friday.Initial reports about the actor’s condition said she was “stable” and firefighters said she had spoken to rescuers as she was pulled from the wreckage. Continue reading...

Construction firm forecasts bumper 2023 as housing boom defies rising interest rates and cost of living crisisBellway has reported a record year of sales as rising house prices offset increasing energy and building costs, and the housebuilder predicted a bumper 2023 despite higher interest rates and the cost of living crisis.The company reported a 13% increase in revenues to a record £3.5bn and 10.5% growth in completions to a record 11,198 in the financial year to the end of July. Continue reading...

NHS chief credits care reforms and new technology for reducing queues that built up during pandemicThe backlog of people waiting more than two years for a routine operation in England has shrunk from 22,500 at the start of the year to fewer than 200.NHS England figures show the number of patients waiting that length of time has fallen to just 168, excluding more complex cases. Continue reading...

Man’s lawyers claim Clare O’Neil’s decision is unconstitutional and ask for him to be released from detention

Liverpool sale will include net curtains, a brick and autographs from night that catapulted band to superstardom“For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands,” John Lennon instructed the 1963 Royal Variety Performance audience at the Prince of Wales theatre in London. “And the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewellery.”It was a brave joke greeted by laughter and applause, part of an important performance that helped to catapult the Beatles to superstardom. Continue reading...

Actor opens up about on-set heart attack and reunion with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul ahead of Breaking Bad prequel’s finaleThe actor Bob Odenkirk has spoken about his collapse on the set of Better Call Saul, saying that if his colleagues had not performed CPR on him he would have been “dead in a few minutes”.Odenkirk, 59, was shooting the final season of the Breaking Bad prequel in New Mexico when he collapsed due to a heart attack last year. Crew members called an ambulance, which took him to hospital for emergency surgery to clean out the artery that the actor called “the widowmaker”. Continue reading...

Actor has been charged over an alleged incident in May, adding to The Flash star’s mounting legal woes and reports of erratic behaviourThe actor Ezra Miller has been charged with felony burglary in Stamford, Vermont, the latest in a string of alleged incidents involving the embattled star of The Flash.In a police report published on Monday, Vermont state police said they had responded to a burglary complaint in Stamford on 1 May and alleged several bottles of alcohol were taken from a residence while the homeowners were not present. After police consulted surveillance footage and interviewed witnesses, Miller was located and charged shortly before midnight on Sunday. Continue reading...

Some of the artefacts, which range from the bronze age to the 12th century, were stolen from ancient Khmer capital Koh KerThe United States will return to Cambodia 30 looted antiquities, including bronze and stone statues of Buddhist and Hindu deities carved more than 1,000 years ago, US officials have said.The south-east Asian country’s archaeological sites – including Koh Ker, a capital of the ancient Khmer empire – suffered widespread looting in civil conflicts between the 1960s and 1990s. Continue reading...

Moscow blames Ukraine war sanctions for preventing mutual inspection of its nuclear arms under New Start treatyRussia has suspended an arrangement that allowed US and Russian inspectors to visit each other’s nuclear weapons sites under the 2010 New Start treaty, in a new blow to arms control.Mutual inspections had been suspended as a health precaution since the start of the Covid pandemic, but a foreign ministry statement on Monday added another reason Russia is unwilling to restart them. It argued that US sanctions imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine stopped Russian inspectors travelling to the US. Continue reading...

Jamie Arnold charged with abusive behaviour at Manchester United match last yearThe former footballer Rio Ferdinand was unaware of being targeted by racist abuse, including a monkey gesture, by a “fixated” football fan during a Premier League match, a court has heard.Jamie Arnold is accused of causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to Ferdinand by using “threatening, abusive or insulting” words or behaviour at the Wolverhampton Wanderers v Manchester United match at Molineux on 23 May last year. Continue reading...

Property managers are being advised to provide notices to leave when issuing fixed-term leases

Two people accused of working for Russian GRU military intelligence agency said to be under arrest

Three people left with potentially life-threatening injuries and child dies after blast in Thornton HeathA four-year-old girl has died and three people have been left with potentially life-threatening injuries from the collapse of a house after a gas explosion in Croydon.Firefighters were called to scenes of devastation in Galpin’s Road in Thornton Heath shortly after 7am on Monday. The explosion there destroyed at least one house. Continue reading...

Pro-Russian head of administration signs decree to start preparations, as Moscow plans to annex seized territory

Mark Barrott had long history as abuser, stalking his wife Eileen physically and electronicallyA “coercive and controlling” husband who murdered his wife when he realised she was trying to break free from what was a toxic relationship has been jailed for at least 21 years.Mark Barrott, who was the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the murder in the Whinmoor area of Leeds, was traced 400 miles away to a monastery in north-east Scotland where he was using an alias. Continue reading...

Footage includes white couple getting sunbeds shortly after couple of ‘north African appearance’ were told they were reservedAnti-racism activists who secretly filmed private beaches on the Côte d’Azur are planning legal action claiming discrimination on the French Riviera.SOS-Racisme sent couples of different ethnic backgrounds to exclusive coastal hotspots and used hidden cameras to record how each was received. Continue reading...

The director and others have criticised Warner Bros over its decision to scrap the superhero movie starring Leslie GraceKevin Smith is one of a number of directors who have weighed in over the decision by Warner Bros to cancel the release of its completed Batgirl movie.Speaking on his YouTube series Hollywood Babble-On, Smith said: “It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie. I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dogshit – I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms Marvel, and it was a wonderful fucking show and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms Marvel and stuff.” Continue reading...

Many of those in nearby countries ask themselves the same questions – is it time to go back? Is it safe?

French tourist, part of tour group of 25 people, taken to hospital after incident at Sveasletta, say policeA polar bear has been killed after it attacked a campsite in Norway’s remote Arctic Svalbard Islands on Monday, injuring a French tourist.The woman, who was not identified, was part of a tour group of 25 people who were camping at Sveasletta, in the central part of the Svalbard archipelago, more than 800km (500 miles) north of the Norwegian mainland. The campsite was located across a fjord from Longyearbyen, the main settlement in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. Continue reading...

Britons resorting to superglue, says watchdog, as 98% of practices in some areas stop accepting new adult patientsIncidents of DIY dentistry, including people using superglue to stick homemade teeth to their gums, are increasing across Britain as more than nine in 10 NHS dental practices are unable to offer appointments to new adult patients, the director of the Healthwatch England watchdog has warned.According to a survey by the British Dental Association and the BBC, 91% of NHS practices across England were not accepting new adult patients, with this figure rising to 97% in the east midlands, and 98% in the south-west, north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber. Continue reading...

Ian Leavers’ affidavit in response to inquiry says failings in responding to such incidents more likely caused by ‘workload pressures or inadequate training’

Peaks of about 35C expected on Friday or Saturday amid warnings of fire riskBritain is braced for another heatwave that will last longer than July’s record-breaking hot spell, with highs of up to 35C expected over the next week, forecasters have said.Temperatures over the coming days will remain lower than the 40.3C reached in July, the hottest temperature on record, but the heatwave will continue over a “prolonged period”, the Met Office has said. Continue reading...

Smaller retailer also in negotiations for deal to use its larger rival’s online platform to run digital operationsNext is in talks to take a £15m stake in the struggling high street retailer Joules.Joules, whose share price has slumped by almost 90% over the last year, said it was in talks with Next about raising the sum in a deal that would result in the clothing and homeware retailer taking a strategic minority investment in the company. Continue reading...

Nick McGowan, who was best man at Guy’s wedding, will take time off to run for an upper house seat in November state election

‘We particularly want to make sure the bargaining system works for small business and for women’, says Tony Burke

Tory leadership candidates want to bring back grammar schools among other campaign promises but critics are wary“This is sugar-rush policymaking. It grabs a headline but has no real substance.” Such was the verdict of one leading figure in the world of education to the policy promises on schools and universities from the two candidates in the Conservative leadership race.Education may not have been a key battleground in the campaign so far, but a number of eye-catching themes have already emerged. First, grammar schools. Both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak would like to see more of them. Is it feasible? Will it happen, and what would the impact be? Continue reading...

NSW treasurer joins transport minister, David Elliott, in running for senior party role after Stuart Ayres resigned

Peggy Woolley character featured in very first episode of BBC radio soap aired in 1951She has played the role of the redoubtable matriarch Peggy Woolley in The Archers for more than 70 years.But at the age of 103, June Spencer is finally retiring from the BBC Radio 4 soap. Continue reading...

At his swearing in Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla, says the country is getting a ‘second chance’ to tackle violence and povertyColombia’s first leftist president has been sworn into office, promising to fight inequality and bring peace to a country long haunted by bloody feuds between the government, drug traffickers and rebel groups.Gustavo Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, won the presidential election in June by beating conservative parties that offered moderate changes to the market-friendly economy, but failed to connect with voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence against human rights leaders and environmental groups in rural areas. Continue reading...

New US ambassador to Australia was in Honiara to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of GuadalcanalA visit to Solomon Islands by senior US diplomats included a touching personal moment, as Caroline Kennedy, the new US ambassador to Australia, met with the children of two men who saved the life of her father, John F Kennedy, during the second world war.Caroline Kennedy was in Honiara to mark the 80th anniversary of the battle of Guadalcanal, a brutal seven-month land, sea and air fight between allied and Japanese forces that marked a turning point in the war. Continue reading...

Queensland police say they are speaking to a man following the discovery of two bodies

Dominic Perrottet said he did discuss other potential roles with the NSW transport minister, but there was nothing guaranteed

Appropriate adults were often absent during the search, and the majority of children were innocentThe children’s commissioner for England has denounced the Metropolitan police’s record on child protection after new data revealed that 650 children were strip-searched over a two-year period and the majority were found to be innocent of the suspicions against them.Dame Rachel de Souza said she was not convinced that the force was “consistently considering children’s welfare and wellbeing” after police data showed that in almost a quarter of cases (23%) an appropriate adult was not present during the search, despite this being a requirement under statutory guidance. Continue reading...

Government seeks to reassure pupils taking GCSEs and A-levels after sharp rises in grades during pandemicThe government has sought to allay pupils’ fears over GCSE and A-level results, which are expected to be lower in England this summer after two years of record increases, reassuring them that universities will “adjust accordingly”.The schools minister Will Quince said it was important to “move back to a position where qualifications maintain their value” and reassured students that grades will still be higher than in 2019, before the pandemic. Continue reading...

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Horniman museum is first government-funded institution to hand back artefacts looted by British forces in 1897A London museum is to return 72 treasured artefacts, including its collection of Benin bronzes, to Nigeria in what experts described as an “immensely significant” moment.The Horniman museum said it would transfer the ownership of the historic objects to the Nigerian government after an unanimous vote by its board of trustees. Continue reading...

PM criticised for nearly week-long break in Slovenia after 15 Whitehall consultations left unansweredLabour has hit out at 15 Whitehall consultations being left unanswered by what it called the “zombie government”, as Boris Johnson arrived back at work from a nearly week-long holiday.After being criticised for reportedly heading to Slovenia while his chancellor was also away despite dire economic warnings and calls to help those struggling with the cost of living crisis, the outgoing prime minister was told to “get on with running the country”. Continue reading...

Police allege man drove directly into crowd of people in north-west Queensland city

Ten-year-old girl suffers major head injuries as motocross bike rider at meet-up in Pontoise hits two childrenFrench politicians have called for a crackdown on urban dirt-bike riding as a 10-year-old girl was critically ill in hospital after being hit by a motocross bike while she played on a housing estate north-east of Paris.An 18-year-old boy was being questioned by police on Sunday after he handed himself in at a police station, accompanied by his lawyer. Continue reading...

Rights group defends allegations that military endangered civilians but says none of them justify Russia’s actionsAmnesty International has said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged that Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.“We fully stand by our findings,” the rights group said on Sunday, but it stressed that “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations”. Continue reading...

A recent survey showed the station is losing its mandated audience – but the full story is more complicated than it seems