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Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers says prime minister is ‘trying to divide us’ for political gain

Police treating the deaths of a man and a woman found at a house in Higher Walton as suspiciousPolice have arrested a man on suspicion of murder after two people were found dead at a house near Preston.Lancashire constabulary said officers found the bodies of a man and a woman at the property on Cann Bridge Street in the village of Higher Walton on Saturday afternoon. Continue reading...

Police fire shots on crowds of rioters in Rotterdam; Covid surge in Europe shows how essential vaccine programme is in UK

Firefighters describe feeling ‘helpless’ after battling blaze that left two girls and two boys dead in Melbourne suburb of WerribeeFour children have died in a fire that tore through a home in Melbourne’s south-west, in the early hours of Sunday morning.Police on Sunday confirmed a 10-year-old and three-year-old boy, and a six-year-old and one-year-old girl had died in the fire, which started at a house in Mantello Drive in Werribee at about 1am. Continue reading...

Police made the arrest at the scene of a disturbance in the city centre where the man diedA 60-year-old man has died following a disturbance in Manchester city centre.Greater Manchester police (GMP) said a “group of people” were involved in the incident on Dantzic Street, near the Printworks leisure venue, to which officers were called on Saturday at just after 8pm. Continue reading...

Three people treated in hospital with serious injuries after clashes in Dutch city over reintroduction of Covid restrictions

Government calls on officials to provide evidence of the tennis player’s whereaboutsThe UK government has joined the mounting chorus of concern over the apparent disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai, urging the Chinese authorities to offer “verifiable evidence” of her whereabouts and safety.Peng, a former doubles world No 1, has not been seen or heard from publicly since she accused a former high-ranking Chinese government official on 2 November of forcing her to have sex after playing tennis at his home. Continue reading...

Activist Joel Keys says unionism would benefit from confronting, not avoiding, the things it finds most difficultHe was the teenage supermarket worker who shocked MPs examining loyalist anger in Northern Ireland by claiming that sometimes violence “was the only tool you have left”. Joel Keys left the committee chair, Tory MP Simon Hoare, “chilled and appalled” and he faced a media backlash.Six months on Keys, now 20, has not disappeared into oblivion after his 15 minutes of fame. Nor has he abandoned his position on violence. He has ambitions to become a local politician representing young loyalist communities that he describes as “goldmines” left behind by unionist parties and education leaders. Continue reading...

A visit to arrest Russell on an outstanding warrant turned to tragedy. His family want an explanationThere are bullet holes in Pam Saha’s laundry wall. There’s also a bullet mark in the floor and, nearby, what appears to be a bloodstain. There’s another reddish stain, with the pattern of a boot in it, visible in flaking paint on thefloor. None were there before NSW police arrived 10 days ago.The officers came to Saha’s house in north-western Sydney to arrest her nephew Stanley Russell, and ended up shooting him dead. The circumstances surrounding it are now the subject of an internal investigation. Continue reading...

Food relief organisations say they are helping more people than ever before. But this is not a good news storyFood banks in Australia were overwhelmed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Whole industries shut down, shedding jobs, and vulnerable people were suddenly more numerous and visible than ever. The demand for food relief exploded, and the charity sector went into overdrive.But the unique circumstances of the pandemic obscure a much more insidious problem. Continue reading...

The American businesswoman, and the prime minister’s ex-lover, is to let officials at London City Hall see extracts from her diariesA fresh inquiry has opened into Boris Johnson’s relationship with Jennifer Arcuri after the US businesswoman dramatically agreed to assist officials, paving the way for the prime minister to face possible criminal investigation.Arcuri has formally offered to help the Greater London Authority (GLA) ethics watchdog by allowing it to inspect extracts of her diary entries chronicling her affair with Johnson and agreeing to be questioned for the first time by investigators over the relationship. Continue reading...

Memorial to novelist would be by Thames, which would evoke her suicide by drowningConcerns have been raised about a planned statue of Virginia Woolf overlooking the Thames, which has been called insensitive because of the way she killed herself.The memorial the author, designed by Laury Dizengremel, would be positioned on a park bench overlooking the river on Richmond riverside in south-west London, where she lived for about a decade from 1914. Continue reading...

A large fire has broken out in a building on Boulevard des Capucines, near the Place de L’Opéra in central Paris, sending clouds of smoke rising into the air. People were told to avoid the area, which is popular with tourists, as fire crews tackled the blaze

Relatives and support groups claim that the sector has been ‘left behind’ as the rest of society opens upDozens of care homes are still denying people access to their elderly relatives 20 months after the pandemic began, according to support groups.Although ministers have urged care homes to allow relatives to visit, groups including the Relatives & Residents Association and Unlock Care Homes say that many are still unable to see elderly residents. Continue reading...

An academic and a football fan who were held in the United Arab Emirates claim Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi oversaw physical abuseTwo British men formerly detained in United Arab Emirates are campaigning to prevent a senior Emirati official from becoming the next president of Interpol, accusing him of personal involvement in their arrests and torture.Academic Matthew Hedges, who was imprisoned in the UAE for seven months, and football fan Ali Issa Ahmad, detained while on holiday in Dubai for wearing a Qatar football shirt, accuse Major General Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi of overseeing their detention and physical abuse. Continue reading...

Commuters on the 8.30 train to Leeds are dismissive about levelling up after Boris Johnson’s broken promises on HS2Few travellers would disagree that the Transpennine Express makes for a splendid journey across the rugged spine of northern England, snaking through beautiful green valleys and picturesque stone villages, from Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds railway station. But perhaps many would quibble with the use of the word “express”.It took just over an hour to traverse the 35 miles between the two cities on the 08.30 from Manchester on Friday – less an intercity bullet train than a rural heritage experience. The long-promised high-speed link was intended to cut the time to 25 minutes, but last week the government announced that it had abandoned those plans, along with the HS2 eastern section to Leeds. Continue reading...

Thousands of people gathered in central Vienna to protest against new tough pandemic measures in Austria. Whistling, clapping, blowing horns and banging drums, protesters – many of them far-right supporters – streamed into Heroes’ Square on Saturday. With daily infections still setting records, the government said it would put the countryt back in lockdown from Monday and make it compulsory to get vaccinated from 1 February

2.2 magnitude quake reported just outside Roybridge on Friday follows tremor near LochgilpheadScotland has been hit by its second earthquake in less than a week, in a tremor that a seismologist described as “quite unusual” because people could actually feel it.The British Geological Survey (BGS) recorded a 2.2 magnitude earthquake just outside Roybridge, near Spean Bridge, in the Highlands, shortly before 9.30pm on Friday. Continue reading...

WHO’s Europe director calls more public health measures to be implemented as fresh wave of infections spreads across continent

Belarus said to be directing smaller groups of people to multiple points along the EU’s eastern frontierPoland has said Belarus has changed tactics in the border crisis by now directing smaller groups of people to multiple points along the European Union’s eastern frontier.Though there have been signs of the crisis easing, the defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said he expected the border showdown to continue for some time. Continue reading...

John Sweeney reported on the women wrongly jailed for murder. Now, 22 years on, he fears we have not seen the end of a modern witch-huntChild abuse is an evil thing but it’s always worse when the perpetrator is the state. Twenty-two years ago this month, Sally Clark was convicted of murdering her two baby boys, Christopher and Harry, and blaming it on cot death. She was sentenced to life in prison. There was a secret sentence, crueller even than that. The murder charge meant that in the family court, behind closed doors, she lost the right to be a mother to her surviving son, and that extra cruelty broke her. The British state committed child abuse by depriving her third boy of his mother for no good reason.The question at the heart of Sally’s tragedy – and those of Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony – was not, “Who murdered this child?” but, “Was there a crime?”. And the truth was there had been no crime. In none of these cases was there any good evidence of child abuse, let alone child murder. There is a fourth case, that of Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian mother who lost four children. She is still in prison. These tragedies are examined in a major new series by Discovery +, released this weekend, on which I am interviewed. Continue reading...

The short but brilliant career of the printmaker is explored at her first European retrospective in Madrid, 22 years after she diedTheir creator is long gone, but Belkis Ayón’s figures live on in syncretic shadow and silhouette, forever slipping between realms and roles, borders and beliefs.Over the course of a short but brilliant life whose final years were profoundly marked by the chaos that the collapse of the Soviet Union visited on her native Cuba, Ayón established herself as an artist whose technical skills were matched only by the haunted and hallucinatory intensity of her imagination. Continue reading...

The actor, 30, talks about learning tenacity, gaining an MBE, meeting Tom Hanks and her pole-dancing addictionIt’s fun to write MBE after your name occasionally. I got the honour in 2019 for services to drama. I have complex feelings about it and it hasn’t made any tangible difference to my career, but it solidified my sense of responsibility. I’m a big advocate for youth arts access and young people often ask me about the MBE, so it’s cool to show them what’s possible. It’s almost an ambassadorial role. Hopefully I’ll get invited to those ambassador’s parties where they serve pyramids of Ferrero Rocher.My mum taught me tenacity. I was raised by a Ugandan single mother in Essex. Immigrants want to succeed and find a stable life, of course, but it’s also quite easy in a foreign country to accept your position and settle for a perceived glass ceiling. Mum never did that. She was always striving and studying. She’s got degrees coming out of her ears. She showed me I didn’t have to place restrictions on myself. Continue reading...

This year’s key prizes have gone to writers from Africa and the diaspora. Damon Galgut, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Abdulrazak Gurnah and others explain what winning means to themThis has been a great year for African writing,” announced Damon Galgut, accepting the Booker prize earlier this month for his multilayered novel, The Promise, which tells the story of an Afrikaner family amid the political and social upheaval that followed the end of apartheid. “I’d like to accept this on behalf of all the stories told and untold, the writers heard and unheard from the remarkable continent that I come from.”It was not an overstatement. Galgut’s Booker win comes at the end of a year when many of the literary world’s major awards have been scooped by writers with origins and heritages in the countries of Africa. In June, David Diop’s second novel At Night All Blood Is Black, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis, won the International Booker prize, its visceral story inspired by the accounts of Senegalese riflemen’s experiences in the first world war. In the last few weeks, Senegal has again come to the fore, as Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (The Most Secret Memory of Men) won France’s Prix Goncourt, making its author the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to do so. Continue reading...

My aunt Ann didn’t want a painful decline from Parkinson’s, so I agreed to accompany her to a Swiss assisted dying clinic. Would she find peace in her final moments?Ann is sitting in a windowless and sparsely furnished white room with high ceilings and a red concrete floor. There is a bed in the corner, next to shelves full of medical equipment. She seems small against the large black sofa, her hands clasped together to minimise the involuntary swaying caused by her Parkinson’s disease. She is in pain, she is tired and, for the first time that day, she is getting a little anxious. She is waiting for someone to arrive with the drug that will kill her. Her fear is not of dying; she passed that point a long time ago. She is worried about the pharmacy’s supplies, suddenly scared that the people in whose hands she has put her death could let her down.Ann Bruce, my aunt and my friend, died in Switzerland on 26 June 2021 at the age of 73. She was a quiet, intelligent woman, slender and unassuming, yet determined and plain-speaking. She started her career as a doctor, and ended it as a psychotherapist. She sang, she held legendary dinner parties, and she adored the theatre – she was the master of her successful life. Continue reading...

Emergency crews continue search for victims after flash floods tear through regionEmergency crews in western Canada continued searching on Friday for victims of flash floods and mudslides which tore through the region this week, as survivors described harrowing escapes from the disaster.British Columbia declared its third state of emergency in a year on Wednesday after a month’s worth of rain fell in two days, swamping towns and cities, blocking major highways and leaving much of the province under water. Continue reading...

In a landmark ruling, Kiribati’s chief justice ordered the government to allow high court judge David Lambourne to returnA landmark judgment in the Pacific country of Kiribati has ruled the government’s actions in blocking an Australian, a judge on Kiribati’s high court, from returning to the island were unconstitutional.When David Lambourne left Kiribati in February 2020 to attend a conference in Australia, he thought it would be a brief and uneventful trip. Instead, the Australian judge, who has been resident of the Pacific nation for over two decades, found himself stranded after Covid-19 hit. Continue reading...

Australian political reporter who was handed the list by an embassy official rejects Wang Xining’s claim it was ‘fabricated’

A jury on Friday found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on charges related to his shooting dead two people at an anti-racism protest and injuring a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, after a tumultuous trial that gripped the US

Campaigners say removal of blue badge parking to make way for new defences is in breach of Equality ActDisability rights campaigners are planning a legal challenge against York council after it voted to ban blue badge parking on key streets in the city centre.York Accessibility Action (YAA), an organisation founded by disabled York residents and carers, said the city has become a “no go zone” for many disabled people and there was now no suitable parking within 150 metres of the city centre. Continue reading...

Satellite images reportedly detected construction of secret facility at Khalifa port amid growing US-China rivalryUS intelligence agencies found evidence this year of construction work on what they believed was a secret Chinese military facility in the United Arab Emirates, which was stopped after Washington’s intervention, according to a report on Friday.The Wall Street Journal reported that satellite imagery of the port of Khalifa had revealed suspicious construction work inside a container terminal built and operated by a Chinese shipping corporation, Cosco. Continue reading...

Cartoon series, starring Monkey D Luffy, started life as a manga in 1997 and is a record seller as a comic bookTwo decades after the Japanese cartoon series One Piece introduced the world to a swashbuckling pirate in a straw hat, anime fans are awaiting this weekend’s release of the 1,000th episode.One Piece first appeared in manga (comic book) form in Japan in 1997, with an anime (animated TV series) version following two years later. Continue reading...

Guardian sports writer whose wit and talent redefined what a football column could beIt is not customary to look forward to Monday mornings but, in the heyday of the Guardian’s print sales in the late 1970s and 80s, many readers relished Monday’s paper more than anything else.On a features page would be Posy Simmonds’ weekly dissection of middle-class life. And, further back, stretched across the width of the main sports page, David Lacey would offer his weekly dissection of football. Like Posy’s cartoon strip, this was one of the great institutions of British journalism. Continue reading...

Second reading of bill to ban marriage for under-18s receives cross-party supportA ban on child marriage in England and Wales came a step closer Friday with cross-party support for a new bill in the House of Commons.The marriage and civil partnership (minimum age) bill had its second reading in parliament, with government and opposition MPs supporting the private member’s bill brought by Conservative MP Pauline Latham. Continue reading...

Readers react to the scaled-back plans and the broken promises about infrastructure investment in the north of EnglandIntegrated rail plan? It’s more like a dog’s breakfast. When Grant Shapps blew the whistle to send a train from Okehampton to Exeter this week, he waxed lyrical about the reopening of a branch line that had been closed for 49 years, and told those listening to look out for more exciting developments.Leaving aside the fact that the line has been operating on summer weekends thanks to the dedication of volunteers, the 11 miles of replacement track laid by Network Rail appears to be significantly more than the people of Bradford, one of the UK’s largest cities, can expect from the revised plans (‘A betrayal of the north’: Tory MPs frustrated at downgraded rail plan, 18 November). This southerner certainly understands their fury.

Leader acknowledges it was ‘absolutely possible’ his army had a part in creating migrant crisis at Polish borderThe Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has acknowledged that his troops probably helped Middle Eastern asylum seekers cross into Europe, in the clearest admission yet that he engineered the new migrant crisis on the border with the EU.In an interview with the BBC at his presidential palace in Minsk, he said it was “absolutely possible” that his troops helped migrants across the frontier into Poland. Continue reading...

Minister’s comments come as hopes grow Northern Ireland deal will be reached after ‘tone change’ in talksThe prospects for a deal with the EU over post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland have been raised, as Michael Gove said the government was “confident” it would not need to trigger article 16 suspending the current deal.The cabinet minister, who has special responsibilities for the union, suggested there were sufficient signs of progress after five weeks of talks that the government would not need to follow through on its recent threats. Continue reading...

In Guardian Australia’s podcast about the internet, Michael Sun, Alyx Gorman and Steph Harmon bring in pop culture expert and Directioner Brodie Lancaster to pore over the easter eggs of Red (Taylor’s Version) – and discuss the pros and cons of stan culture. Then, we set out on our stupid little daily walk with Maggie Zhou, who goes deep on a new TikTok trend that’s shifting the way we talk about wellness Continue reading...

The scandal has led some to consider why good people say nothing about bigotry and abuseEvery year, a British Asian small business owner in West Yorkshire sends his neighbour a card and leaves a gift on his doorstep. And every year, without fail, that neighbour ignores him.“Ever since we moved in, he won’t look at me and my family, he doesn’t respond when we say ‘hello’. He even planted conifers so we couldn’t see into his garden and he can’t see us,” the man, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “But I still send him Christmas cards and buy him a gift. He won’t even open the door when I knock, so I just leave it on the doorstep.” Continue reading...

Peng Shuai is latest in long line of artists, officials and celebrities to have vanished in recent years

Teenager in hospital after being shot in the back in Hockley Circus, Birmingham, on Thursday eveningA 13-year-old boy is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot in the back in Birmingham, West Midlands police have said.The teenager was shot in Hockley Circus, Birmingham, shortly before 7pm on Thursday. Continue reading...

Fears of restrictions in other European countries this winter knock airlines

Penelope Gibbs, former magistrate and founder of Transform Justice, on whether harsher sentences are effectiveUntil recently, the subject of criminal punishment hasn’t been a massive public concern for the public (putting aside that small demographic committed to a “hang ’em all!” approach). But in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, calls for misogyny to become a hate crime have gone from a whisper to a roar. That change would give judges the power to increase sentences when misogyny was found to be an aggravating factor in a crime. But would harsher sentences do much to stop such crimes happening? I asked Penelope Gibbs, former magistrate and founder of Transform Justice, a charity campaigning for a more effective justice system.Did you hear about the Thai fraudster who was sentenced to jail for more than 13,000 years? I guess they needed a number to describe ‘throwing away the key’. Are long sentences becoming more common?

Boycott, divestment and sanctions is a peaceful movement. If it’s banned, how do we press for an end to human rights abuses?Palestinians are not just denied a state of their own, they are largely exiled from a debate about their own future. This was made clear this week in Keir Starmer’s address to Labour Friends of Israel. The Labour leader was right to use the speech to condemn the evil of antisemitism, embedded as it is in western culture and society, including among people on the left who – however unrepresentative – have caused hurt and distress to Britain’s Jews. This is one reason, after all, why many Jews see Israel as a lifeboat; across millennia, supposed social acceptance has given way to renewed persecution.Rightly condemning antisemitism is not incompatible with a passionate critique of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine – Starmer addressed both subjects in his speech. He dismissed a “Manichean view of the conflict”, saying he is a “friend of Israel and of Palestine”. This would make sense, given both Labour’s long history of supporting a two-state solution (even if that has too often been in word not deed) and the loss of trust in the Labour party among many British Jews. Starmer is trying to build bridges, but his strategy is misguided. His position may sound eminently reasonable, but there is a huge gulf in power between an impoverished, besieged and militarily occupied territory and a powerful state with a hi-tech military that is backed by a superpower.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Family say the body of Dr Nader Alemi, who was taken by armed men in September, showed signs of tortureOne of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists, who was abducted by armed men in September, has been found dead, his family has confirmed.Dr Nader Alemi’s daughter, Manizheh Abreen, said that her father had been tortured before he died. Continue reading...

Jennifer Lopez proposes to Owen Wilson, a maths teacher she’s never met. What was she thinking? How will it end? And does anyone care?Nobody really wants it to be 2021, do they? A vicious global pandemic is about to enter its third year, the world is on fire and populist politics threatens to overturn democracy as we know it. Some people have reacted to these terrible times by trying to change things. Others are willing themselves back to a more innocent era.By “others”, I mean Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, who are doing their level best to make it 2005 again. How? By making a romcom, that’s how. If this was a decade and a half ago, then Marry Me would automatically be one of the biggest hits of the year, bringing together the unstoppable forces responsible for Maid in Manhattan and Wedding Crashers. But it isn’t 2005, it’s 2021, and the thought of watching Lopez and Wilson shuffle through a romcom together is baffling. Perhaps it’d help to go through the Marry Me trailer beat by beat. Continue reading...