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Government funding for independent schools increased by $3,338 a student over a decade, compared to $703 more per student for public schools

The prime minister told reporters that while Russia had announced it had withdrawn some troops from the Ukrainian border, intelligence showed that it was still making preparations to invade. Johnson said that while these 'mixed signals' meant UK sanctions on Russia needed to be ready to go, the government had decided to keep its embassy open in Kyiv as 'an important symbol'

The much-hyped show about the theft of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape offers a screwball meditation on consent – without the consent of one of its subjectsPam & Tommy, the Hulu series on the story behind the most infamous sex tape of the 1990s, is disconcertingly fun. The eight-part series created by Robert Siegel, half of which has aired, is front-loaded with 90s iconography and zany gags designed to provoke online discussion. There’s the brain-scrambling transformations of actors Lily James and Sebastian Stan into mid-90s rock it-couple Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, and a mulleted Seth Rogen as Rand Gauthier, the stiffed carpenter who pulls off an impressive heist of the couple’s safe, played for suspense. There’s nostalgic needle drops from Nine Inch Nails to Fatboy Slim, a conversation between a high Tommy and his animatronic penis, and plenty of sex, drugs, videotapes and characters asking, with winking naivety, what the world wide web is.It’s a confusing, often entertaining watch, one that wants to have its fun and interrogate it, too, at best a heady blend of screwball comedy, madcap romance, expensive nostalgia and serious retrospective of a public scandal in which a woman’s privacy was invaded, her intimate moments exploited and judged without her consent. But there’s one detail that, for me, turns this whole palate sour: the real Pamela Anderson did not want this story retold. While Stan has confirmed that he spoke with Lee, who has praised his portrayal, Anderson did not respond to producers’ overtures. She has not spoken publicly about the series, but sources have expressed her discontent and disappointment in multiple outlets. Continue reading...

Prime minister says ‘intelligence is not encouraging’ and reveals Russian field hospitals in Belarus appear to be part of invasion preparations

Long Covid less likely to affect vaccinated people than unvaccinated people, says UK health agency;Japan reports 236 Covid-linked deaths on Tuesday

Officer had raised concerns in month before attack that ‘something could get through’ due to high workloadMI5 had enough intelligence to regard Salman Abedi as a threat to national security and open an investigation before he bombed the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds of others, an inquiry has heard.The Security Service was “struggling to cope” with an increased workload, and the team responsible for the north-west of England had declared an “amber” period of stress and high capacity the month before the attack in 2017. Continue reading...

Despite sniping from the Tory press Melinda Simmons is renowned as trailblazer who has thrown herself into the job

As girls are paraded through Kuria’s streets in the school holiday cutting season, hundreds more are hidden by a network of neighbours working to change attitudes on FGM from the ground up

EDPS says NSO Group’s software is ‘incompatible with our democratic values’ and should be banned in blocThe use of Pegasus spyware should be banned in the EU, the bloc’s data watchdog has advised, as it is a “gamechanger” offering unprecedented powers to intrude into targets’ lives.The European data protection supervisor (EDPS) said a prohibition was necessary as the software, developed by the Israeli NSO Group, was able to secretly turn a mobile phone into a surveillance device. Continue reading...

A jangling score and unnerving camerawork build tension in story of a woman convinced her daughter is back from the deadAndrea Riseborough is a powerful actor who could bring emotional complexity to a tomato ketchup advert. Here she’s intense in an understated way as a grieving mother who becomes convinced that the girl next door is her daughter, back from the dead. That reincarnation storyline is not unfamiliar, and to be honest it made my heart sink a bit at first. But this atmospheric and unsettling slowburn drama from Northern Ireland pulls it off, just.Riseborough plays a woman called Laura whose daughter Josie died several years earlier; she lives in Antrim with her husband Brendan (Jonjo O’Neill) and their teenage son Tadhg (Lewis McAskie). They are a family getting on with it, bearing the unbearable. But beneath the dinner table banter, you sense that each of them is alone with their grief. Riseborough signals Laura’s loss and longing in every movement; it’s there in the way she holds herself stiffly upright, like she might fall apart from heartbreak. When 10-year-old Megan (Niamh Dornan) moves in next door, Laura invites her round for tea and picks her up from school in the car. Megan appears to know things that only Josie would know, recalls places that she can’t possibly have seen. Laura starts to believes she is Josie. Continue reading...

An intimate portrayal of methamphetamine addiction in the Czech Republic, Europe’s largest producer, through the life of Lenka, an addict of over 20 years.Lenka’s elderly parents rely on her for social care and labour on their land, while she relies on the drug to fuel all that is required of her at home. Beyond her home life, her relationship is breaking down and her dealer has gone awol, forcing her to make some painful decisions.The country has a long and complex history with the drug, which started gaining popularity in the 1990sWarning – this film contains strong language and some viewers might find the content distressingIn the UK and Ireland, for details of local services that provide counselling and treatment for drug addiction, please visit ‘Talk to Frank’ https://www.talktofrank.com/get-help/find-support-near-you Continue reading...

Family of Asian heritage criticise local FA for lack of support and say opposition team yet to say sorryThe family of a 12-year-old footballer of Asian heritage who was racially abused during a match has criticised his local Football Association for a lack of support and said he has received no apology from the opposition team involved.Sathi Balaguru, was playing in a nine-a-side game for Pitshanger FC in west London, when he was tripped and called an “Indian boy” during a penalty incident. Another player on the opposing side directed a racist Indian accent towards him. Sathi is British and of Sri Lankan heritage. Continue reading...

The government promised to learn from Windrush, but citizens trafficked to Syria by Islamic State have also been abandonedThe government’s proposed new powers to strip people of their citizenship without notice rang alarm bells in communities across Britain. Despite being the first Muslim woman in our country’s history to serve in the cabinet, my family and I could be deprived of our citizenship without being told about it, and cast out of our home country if the Home Office believed this would be conducive to the public good. Two in five people from ethnic minority backgrounds could be at risk.Successive British governments have torn down the basic belief that all British citizens in this country are and should be equal. The consequences of this government’s unprecedentedly broad use of citizenship-stripping powers have become even more clear to me after hearing directly from the families of British citizens detained in north-east Syria. Continue reading...

Krystyna Deuss has offered flat to Afghan judge Fawzia but she has not been allowed to move in

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the government would invoke the Emergencies Act as the country goes into a third week of 'illegal and dangerous' blockades.'We are not preventing the right of people to protest legally,' said Trudeau, adding that the military would not be deployed as part of the measures

Bas Javid says racism is an issue ‘but what I won’t do is describe all of the organisation as a racist organisation’A senior Metropolitan police officer has said racism is a problem in the country’s largest force.Deputy Assistant Commissioner Bas Javid, the brother of the health secretary, Sajid Javid, acknowledged “people who have racist views and are racist” were among the force’s staff. Continue reading...

Under-pressure prime minister tells party room ‘you haven’t seen me as focused as I can be yet … I know what the path is’

UK foreign secretary says invasion by Putin could embolden Iran and China to expand their ambitions

Attorney general tells Senate estimates no anti-corruption commission legislation will be introduced in this term; Labor probes Coalition’s bushfire response during extended question time; Australia records at least 46 Covid-related deaths. Follow live

The men convicted for drug offences could be executed on Wednesday as Singapore draws increasing scrutiny over its use of the death penaltySingapore has been urged to halt the scheduled execution of two men convicted of a drug trafficking offence, with campaigners describing the plans as cruel and inhumane.Roslan bin Bakar and Pausi bin Jefridin, who were arrested in 2008, are due to be executed as early as Wednesday. Campaigners have raised numerous concerns about the handling of their cases, and say that Pausi, a Malaysian national, has an IQ of 67, and so should be protected under international law. Continue reading...

Fears that city struggling with 2,000 coronavirus cases a day could see daily figures reach 30,000

The past two years have been the hardest ever for restaurants. Amid critical shortages of staff, food supplies and even customers, can a new venture from the man behind Polpo survive?

Our bodies and our planet are united – and it is time to listen to what both are saying to usThe story my body wants to tell is that my body and the body of Earth are One. Continue reading...

Red sequins, faux fur corsets and sky high heels from the celebrity favourite in a tribute to his late mentor, Andre Leon TalleyLaQuan Smith’s autumn/winter 2022 show at New York fashion week on Monday evening started over an hour late.It soon became clear why – a celebrity was involved. Julia Fox, the model and actor who has had the lens of the paparazzi trained on her for months thanks to her recent relationship with Kanye West, opened the show and caused a hush across the audience. Continue reading...

Under former Tory MP Rory Stewart’s plans, countries would take in an agreed number of refugees annuallyLiberal democracies can regain their lost sense of shared moral purpose by agreeing to set a long-term internationally agreed target for the number of refugees they are each prepared to take each year, Rory Stewart, a former Conservative cabinet minister, has proposed.Unveiling his plan to the Guardian, Stewart said: “Reforming the international resettlement coalition around the Afghan crisis presents a rare opportunity for key liberal democracies to restore their moral authority, form a workable international coalition, and deliver rapid, concrete, ethical results.” Continue reading...

A report by Fortify Rights claims soldiers have carried out massacres and used civilians as human shieldsThe Myanmar military kidnapped civilians and forced them to work as human shields, attacked homes, churches and carried out massacres, according to a report that warns recent atrocities in eastern Myanmar may amount to war crimes.The report, by the Myanmar-founded human rights group Fortify Rights, documents abuses by the country’s military in Karenni state, also known as Kayah state, an area that has seen intense fighting between the army and groups opposed to last year’s military coup. Continue reading...

As US intelligence sources warn of an imminent Russian invasion, residents of the Ukrainian capital are refusing to be cowed, reports Shaun WalkerWith more than 100,000 Russian troops on the border of Ukraine there are fears that Europe is facing its biggest military crisis since the second world war. Over the weekend, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said an invasion could begin “any day now”.The Guardian’s Shaun Walker is in Kyiv and tells Michael Safi that, on the face of it, much of the city is continuing life as normal. Restaurants are open, shops are full and the snow-lined streets buzz with people going about their normal business. This is in stark contrast to many foreign diplomats who are scrambling to leave the Ukranian capital before any military action that could begin within days or even hours. Continue reading...

The comedic trio are expected to be formally announced as hosts, the show’s first since 2018, on Good Morning America on TuesdayAmy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes will host the 94th Academy Awards this year, Variety reported on Monday. The trio of female comedic actors, who are expected to be formally announced on Good Morning America on Tuesday, will be the struggling show’s first hosts since 2018.Schumer, Hall and Sykes are tasked with providing some zest for a program whose ratings have flagged in recent years. Viewership for last year’s scaled-backed ceremony, held in Los Angeles’s Union Station, fell by more than half from the previous year, which itself was a record-breaking low. Continue reading...

Mike Burgess’ intervention comes days after the defence minister claimed the Chinese government had picked Anthony Albanese ‘as their candidate’The Asio chief has declared that his intelligence agency is “not here to be politicised”, vowing to defend its independence after the leak of details of an alleged foreign interference plot.Mike Burgess confirmed he held no concerns about any Labor candidates at the next federal election, and people should “definitely not” assume an Asio employee was responsible when news reports attributed information to “security sources”. Continue reading...

Detectives found Salman Abedi had exchanged 1,300 text messages with another suspected terrorist in 2014Intelligence that linked the Manchester Arena bomber to another suspected terrorist was uncovered by detectives three years before the 2017 bombing but was never passed on for further investigation, an inquiry has heard.Detectives found the name, photo and phone number of Salman Abedi during an investigation into Abdalraouf Abdallah in 2014. Continue reading...

Gaia Young’s mother accuses medics of missing chances to save 25-year-old daughter of late Labour peer Michael YoungThe “polite” and “clean-living” daughter of Lord Young died after suffering a sudden unexplained headache, an inquest has heard, as her mother accused medics of missing chances to save her.Gaia Young, 25, was taken to hospital having fallen severely ill after going out for a bike ride and meeting friends on 17 July, it was said. Continue reading...

When a tsunami and volcanic eruption devastated Tonga, photographer Leki Lao boarded a navy boat to deliver emergency supplies. He witnessed destruction, heartache and fearAt 6.30am on the day after the tsunami hit, I went into work. I am a procurement officer at the Ministry of Lands in Tonga, and work as a photographer on the side. I had seen videos on Facebook that showed the waves from the tsunami reached the ministry’s building in the capital of Nuku’alofa and I wanted to see if I could help with the clean up.Top: A boat found more than 60 metres from the sea on Tungua. The owner checks for damage and a way to haul it back to the ocean.

Russian president signals prospect of talks with west as military buildup leaves world guessing about possible invasionVladimir Putin has suggested it is still not too late for dialogue over Ukraine, as the world continues to be left guessing whether the Russian president is on the brink of invading his neighbour, or whether his military buildup is a negotiating ploy.In a meeting in the Kremlin, the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told Putin he believed there was still room for dialogue on Russian requests for a new security deal with the west, which have been made as Russia amassed 140,000 troops around Ukraine’s borders in recent weeks. Continue reading...

JCVI advised vaccinating the age group last week, but government is still ‘reviewing’ the evidence

Strike is first of 10 days of action spread over three weeks, which will also tackle pay and working conditionsThousands of UK university staff have gone on strike in a new wave of industrial action over pensions, pay and working conditions, claiming they have overwhelming support from students.The University and College Union, which represents university workers, said huge numbers of UCU members had joined picket lines on Monday, where they were supported with musical accompaniment, DIY banners and chants. Continue reading...

From Euphoria to the recent Gossip Girl reboot, TV about young people is becoming unrelentingly bleak. What has caused this landscape of serial killers, drug addiction and Russian roulette?If our school days are the happiest of our lives, I’m worried for the Euphoria teens. In the season two opener, the kids of East Highland saw a drug dealer being murdered with a hammer by another drug dealer named “Ashtray” (because he ate discarded cigarettes as a child). One girl celebrates New Year’s Eve by hiding under a urine-soaked towel in a bath, and the school’s toxic jock is beaten up so brutally his face has to be stitched back together. As Rue – Euphoria’s enigmatic lynchpin played by Emmy-winner Zendaya – says in the closing seconds: “Damn.”We had been warned. Before this adolescent journey through drugs, sex and social media resumed, Zendaya told her followers on social media that the second season may be even more “triggering and difficult to watch” than the first. She wasn’t wrong. There’s a torturous drug relapse that ends in a bathtime morphine session, a manipulative love triangle and a battle for an underage sex tape that leads to a game of Russian roulette. Euphoria often feels less high school, more horror film. Continue reading...

Analysis: it is still unclear how far Russian president is willing to go to achieve his Ukraine goals

The supermodel is pictured on the front cover of British Vogue’s March issue with her daughterNaomi Campbell has described becoming a mother at the age of 50 as “the best thing I’ve ever done”.In a photoshoot for the March issue cover of British Vogue, the supermodel will appear photographed with her daughter. Campbell has never revealed her daughter’s name, but she confirmed to the magazine that she was not adopted. Continue reading...

The novelist Niamh Campbell on why describing intimacy is so difficult and how creative writing about sexuality is changing. Plus, she picks 10 of her favourite examplesOne of my favourite literary sex scenes is a swift and quiet one. In Colm Tóibín’s The Pearl Fishers, a gay man having dinner with a former lover and this lover’s – fanatically Catholic – wife thinks, with a flash of candidness, of anilingus past. It doesn’t read like a calculated shock, just pleasure; the story moves on and the image melts out. No point is made, nobody humiliated, no corny gotcha! occurs. There are only three people: one deceiving (husband), one pious (wife) and one emboldened but alone. The point is nuanced humanity. It’s hot.It has been remarked upon that recent writing about sex by, in the main, young women tends towards the squalid, abject and confrontational. I can tell you that this partly down to the fact that app-based erotic culture in the metropolises of late capitalism really can be squalid, abject and confrontational. If people’s lives become miserable mills of boredom and humiliation they will tend to take it out on one another. I know this because I am Irish. People think this country was deranged for most of the 20th century by the church, but it was also deranged by poverty and, relatedly, shame. #NotallIrish of course; some people belonged to a more sex-positive cosmopolitan elite class, some were able to smuggle in condoms. And yet, the fact that it still feels impossible to discuss sex and Ireland without mentioning penitentiary laundries says a lot. Continue reading...

Waseem Azeem acquitted of murdering Qandeel Baloch after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law, lawyer saysA Pakistani man sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for strangling his sister, a model on social media, has been acquitted of murder after his parents pardoned him under Islamic law.Waseem Azeem was arrested in 2016 after he confessed to killing Qandeel Baloch, 26, for posting what he called “shameful” pictures on Facebook. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison but his parents had sought his release, said Sardar Mahboob, a lawyer who represents Azeem and his family. Continue reading...

A visual guide to recent troop deployments as tensions soarAmerican officials have warned of the “very distinct possibility” of a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next few days, after Russia forward-deployed hundreds of tanks, self-propelled artillery and even short-range ballistic missiles from as far away as Siberia to within striking range. Continue reading...

Six protesters walked free after spending a month underground in front of London stationThe Crown Prosecution Service has launched a high court challenge to the decision by a judge last year to let the Euston Tunnellers walk free after their trial.The highly unusual move, which seeks a judicial review of the acquittal of the six HS2 protesters who spent a month in tunnel in front of Euston train station, has led to claims by environmental activists that the CPS is interfering with the right to protest non-violently about the climate emergency. Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin could launch an invasion of Ukraine 'almost immediately', the foreign secretary has warned after chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee. Liz Truss repeated a call for Britons to leave Ukraine because of the threat of war. She also defended her decision to travel to Moscow to meet her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, saying: 'The Russians didn’t like what I had to say, but I say it nevertheless, and I want them to desist, and I want them to be aware that there will be severe costs of an invasion'

The low and middle income tax offset is supposedly at risk of ending but experts are sceptical that the government will dump it

Richard Morris worked 15-hour days and suffered night sweats when he went missing in May 2020, wife tells coronerAn experienced British diplomat whose body was found almost four months after vanishing from his Hampshire home had been under “extreme stress” working on the sensitive Harry Dunn case and the Covid crisis, an inquest heard.Richard Morris, the former ambassador to Nepal, worked 15-hour shifts six or seven days a week for the Foreign Office and began to suffer from night sweats, worrying he was going to make a mistake that could land him in prison, the hearing was told. Continue reading...

They’re actors, how hard can it be? Lily James lays it on thick as Pamela Anderson, while Julia Garner’s just baffling in Inventing Ana. Then there’s Lady Gaga …Name: Weird accents.Age: As old as acting. Continue reading...

Exclusive: comments by ambassador to EU will add to fears of ‘false-flag’ operation as pretext for invasion

Grete Minde was a side project for Eugen Engel, a textile tradesman by day, whose daughter escaped to USAn opera score retrieved from a San Francisco basement has had its world premiere in a German theatre, exuberantly brought to life by more than 150 musicians and performers nearly 80 years after its composer was murdered by the Nazis.Grete Minde, a late-romantic opera of 1920s jazz-inspired melodies and large orchestral sounds, was the work of Eugen Engel, a Berlin-based Jewish textile tradesman in his day job, who gave his handwritten sheet music to his daughter for safekeeping when she escaped to the United States in 1941. Continue reading...

Decision comes after threatening phone message and disrupts $2.4bn industry during one of its busiest times of the yearThreats to an American agricultural inspector in the Mexican state of Michoacán caused the US to suspend imports of avocados from its neighbor, officials said, disrupting a $2.4bn industry during one of its busiest times of the year.Mexico’s department of agriculture said in a statement that the inspector received a threatening message on his cellphone, prompting the ban on avocado exports to the US “until further notice.” Continue reading...

Interior minister heads to scene of tragedy near Perpignan as search of gutted buildings continuesAt least seven people, including two children, have died after an explosion sent fire raging through a building in southern France.One of the victims of the blaze that started in a three-story building in the coastal town of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque, north-east of Perpignan, was reported to be a baby. Continue reading...