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Photo shows department officials drinking Moët & Chandon in June 2020 while strict rules were in force

A brilliant cast lead this outrageously fun gorefest, which navigates a 90s-to-present-day timeline with laughs, panache – and exploding planesWhat’s not to love about Yellowjackets (Sky Atlantic), a series largely driven by the central mystery of which teenage girl has been eaten, and who ordered the eating? The US horror/thriller/drama, which is also truly a comedy (is it so wrong to laugh at an exploding plane?), has acquired a big following over the course of its first season. It tells the story of a girls’ high-school football team, whose plane crashes while they’re travelling to a national tournament, leaving survivors stranded in the wilderness, having to fight for their lives. Think of it as a hybrid of The Craft and The Island with Bear Grylls, or Lost – with intentional jokes – plus a hint of Big Little Lies, if that had more of an interest in cannibalism than property porn.I can’t remember the last time a TV series offered such unadulterated and outrageous fun. It even manages to navigate one of contemporary television’s most irritating trends, the split timeline, with style and panache. Half of the action takes place in 1996, starting out as a retro teen drama in the run-up to the crash, morphing into a folk-horror gorefest once the girls (and the odd boy or two) are right there in the thick of it. The other half takes place 25 years later, in the present day, as some of the women who made it out alive have to work out who knows what about the terrible things they did while they were stranded, and who is trying to blackmail them about it. Continue reading...

Firouzeh Khosrovani’s autobiographical film shows how the turbulent currents of Iranian life defined her family’s lifeFirouzeh Khosrovani’s autobiographical documentary opens in a grand yet sparely decorated drawing room, painted in white. As an unhurried tracking shot pulls viewers into the strangely still space, a sense of mystery permeates: nearly all the furniture is draped in ivory-coloured cloth. Indeed, the film operates like an act of unveiling. Peering through the hazy gauze of the past, Khosrovani explores her parents’ complex against the shifting tides of Iranian history.On her wedding day, Khosrovani’s mother, Tayi, married with only a photograph of her father, Hossein, present, while he was studying radiology in Switzerland. Having grown up in a religious household in Iran, Tayi was never at ease in Geneva, where she spent the early years of her marriage. When she became pregnant with Firouzeh, she urged a reluctant Hossein to return to Tehran, right on the brink of the Iranian revolution. Continue reading...

Authorities claim recent Omicron case in Beijing came from package sent from Canada

Man has reportedly threatened to set himself on fire if removal order in Jerusalem district is carried outIsraeli police are in a standoff with a Palestinian man who carried a gas canister on to the roof of his home in a Jerusalem flashpoint district as his family faced eviction.Israeli media reported that Mohammed Salhiya had threatened to set himself on fire if the eviction order from the Sheikh Jarrah area of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem was carried out. Continue reading...

Marnie Clayton, 18, from Bracknell, last seen leaving Atik in William Street in early hours of SundayPolice are appealing for help to find a teenager last seen leaving a nightclub in Windsor.Marnie Clayton, 18, from Bracknell, left Atik in William Street at about 2am on Sunday, Thames Valley police said. Continue reading...

Book claims to have solved mystery over who gave away family’s hiding place during second world warA Jewish notary has been named by a cold case team led by a former FBI agent as the prime suspect for the betrayal of Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis.Arnold van den Bergh, who died in 1950, has been accused on the basis of six years of research and an anonymous note received by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, after his return to Amsterdam at the end of the war. Continue reading...

Investigation finds mobile phones of human rights defenders were hacked multiple timesThe plight of women’s rights campaigners in Bahrain and Jordan is in the spotlight after new revelations that two prominent female activists were hacked multiple times by countries using NSO Group spyware.An investigation by the human rights group Front Line Defenders (FLD) found that the mobile phones of Ebtisam al-Saegh, a Bahraini human rights defender, and Hala Ahed Deeb, who works with human rights and feminist groups in Jordan, had been hacked using NSO’s Pegasus spyware. Continue reading...

Feeling like a fraud is bad enough at work but even more corrosive when it comes to raising a family. How can parents overcome damaging self-doubt?As a mother to three boys, there are many days when I question the decisions I make. Sometimes, the weight of that – the idea your child’s wellbeing and happiness rests with you – can feel crippling. At the same time, we are bombarded by parents publicising their own pride in their offspring’s achievements on Instagram and Facebook and in WhatsApp groups, meaning it’s easy to feel as if everyone else knows what they’re doing.The idea that people sometimes feel like impostors at work is often discussed. Yet the parental impostor syndrome many people have – that they are faking it, and will never cut it as a parent – is seldom acknowledged. Continue reading...

Education secretary says he believes prime minister is safe in his job despite ‘partygate’ revelations

Nasir is stranded in Jalalabad with his family and says he feels let down by the UK Foreign OfficeNasir*, 43, is a British citizen, stuck in Jalalabad with his six-year-old son, also a British citizen, and his wife, who is an Afghan national.I moved to the UK as a refugee in 2000, because I was having a lot of problems with the Taliban, and I had been arrested, so I knew it was time to leave. I claimed asylum in Britain and have lived there for about 21 years. To begin with I worked as a motorcycle mechanic, and then as a pizza delivery driver, and later for Addison Lee and after that as an Uber driver. I’ve been supporting my mum and my sisters in Afghanistan for years, sending money back. I’ve been spending six months in the UK earning money and six months with my family in Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Ricky ‘Dougie’ Hampson Jr died within 18 hours of being discharged from Dubbo hospital, allegedly without a proper diagnosis

Prosecutor claims Petro Poroshenko was involved in financing of Russian-backed separatists in 2014-15Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko has returned to the country to face court on treason charges he believes are politically motivated.Poroshenko was greeted by several thousand cheering supporters at Kyiv airport, where he arrived on a flight from Warsaw on Monday morning. Some carried banners saying “We need democracy,” and “Stop repressions.” Continue reading...

Zed Seselja says there are no reports of mass casualties but more will be known once assessment flights return to Australia and New ZealandAustralia’s minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, says initial reports suggest no mass casualties in Tonga following the eruption of a volcano that triggered a tsunami, but Australian police have visited beaches with significant damage and “houses thrown around”.Australia and New Zealand sent surveillance flights on Monday to assess the damage after Tonga was isolated from the rest of the world when Saturday’s eruption blanketed the Pacific Island with ash. Continue reading...

Etinosa Yvonne recalls a chance encounter with a Fulani woman in northern NigeriaI met this woman in Machina, in Yobe state, when I was on assignment in northern Nigeria 2020. It had taken us seven hours to get there – it’s right on the border with Niger – and it was already late afternoon, early evening.We were waiting for people to come and collect water from a solar-powered water pump when I saw her: this extremely beautiful Fulani woman. I was particularly drawn to the marks on her face. I knew Fulani women always like to look good, but it was really beautiful to see up close. There was a bit of a language barrier as I don’t speak Fula and she didn’t speak English or Hausa, but she agreed to have her photo taken. Continue reading...

Victoria close to Covid peak, Brett Sutton says; ‘significant decrease’ in Covid cases predicted in NSW over next month; reports of new eruption detected at Tonga volcano; Australia records more than 73,000 Covid cases nationally with 31 deaths across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT; more than 5,000 Covid cases in nation’s hospitals. This blog is now closed

Experts on whether getting Covid is inevitable and why, despite claims of ‘mildness’, the variant is highly dangerousLeaders in the US have struck a pessimistic tone about the Covid-19 pandemic in recent weeks amid rapid spread of the Omicron variant.Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, recently testified before Congress that “most people are going to get Covid”. Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, has also said that Omicron “​​will ultimately find just about everybody” in terms of exposure, though vaccines make an important difference in who develops the illness. Continue reading...

After nearly two years of pandemic, 5,000 inpatients and 1,000 deaths, the staff of one of the largest hospitals in north-west England are frustrated and exhausted

In such a conservative country, young women often have to fight their own families first just to play the sport they loveBisma Amjad plays cricket. She aspires to play internationally and was picked for Pakistan’s under-19 World Cup squad.But when the pandemic came, because she was a woman, there was nowhere for her to practise, so she dressed as a man to play alongside male cricketers at “gully cricket” – the street game. Continue reading...

Burns warned use of dialect would alienate London readers in letter that forms part of major project by University of GlasgowScotland’s beloved son and national bard Robert Burns has done more than any other poet to export the 18th-century Scottish dialect around the world, through the new year classic Auld Lang Syne and his other famous works.His lyrics, such as “we twa hae run about the braes/and pou’d the gowans fine”, may be incomprehensible to many, but the fame and influence of a man annually celebrated on 25 January has endured over more than two centuries. Continue reading...

Do not mistake changing polls and rising public anger with anything that will bring meaningful change to BritainAny minute now, no? Surely this is it for Boris Johnson. The party is over. He has managed to get away with it before, but, as someone yelled with relish at prime minister’s questions last week: “Not this time!”The polls do indeed look bad for the first time in a long while, and a more troubling portent for the prime minister is how the “r” word – resignation – has become thrown about not as a far-fetched demand but as a real possibility.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Their exotic animal show was a Sin City sensation – until one of their white tigers attacked. But why were counter-terrorism police called? New podcast Wild Things tackles an enduring mysteryWhere do you start with a story that involves counter-terrorism police doing background checks on a tiger, has its roots in the mental health problems of Nazi soldiers, and features an investigation into whether a beehive hairdo can be used as a weapon? What’s more, weaving in and out of all of this, there are two German magicians in mullets and shiny suits seemingly capable of floating around in the air, one of whom nearly dies on stage after a white tiger bites clean through his neck.This was the problem facing Emmy-winning film-maker Steven Leckart, who had long felt that the extraordinary story of Siegfried and Roy, whose performances with exotic animals electrified Las Vegas, deserved a proper telling. The result is Wild Things, an eight-part podcast detailing how Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn rose to international stardom with a whole zoo’s worth of performing jungle cats, then had their live career effectively ended when a tiger called Montecore attacked Roy on stage, nearly killing him. Continue reading...

As a child, Tina Leverton dreamed of being a ballet dancer, but her parents couldn’t afford the lessons. Learning to dance decades later has been joyful – and transformed her lifeTina Leverton was 62 when she bought her first pair of ballet shoes. She says slipping her feet into the soft leather was very emotional. “I felt utterly transported. I took a photo of them and sent it to my daughter. I said: ‘I’ve waited a long time for these.’”A few weeks earlier, Leverton had taken the first ballet class of her life, after an advert in a freesheet caught her eye. It showed older women at the barre. “It really evoked a strong memory from when I was a child. I thought: ‘Let’s go for it.’” The class was near Leverton’s home in Mumbles, on the Gower peninsula in south Wales. “As I came in the door, I twirled around,” she says. “Big smile on my face. From the minute I started, it was wonderful. It felt like coming home.” Continue reading...

The legal battle over the painting, in the hands of a Madrid museum, has spanned more than 15 yearsDepicting a rainswept Paris street, the Nazi-looted painting has long hung on the walls of one of Madrid’s top art museums. Its fate is now in the hands of the highest court in the US, in a case that has long pitted the Spanish institution against the heirs of Jewish refugees.At the centre of the US supreme court hearing, set to begin on Tuesday, is an 1897 painting by impressionist Camille Pissarro. For decades the piece – titled Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain – graced the walls of the Cassirer family homes in Berlin and Munich after it was bought directly from Pissarro’s art dealer. Continue reading...

Analysis: As clock runs down on Vienna talks, key obstacles remain to be cleared by Tehran and the westThe countdown to the end of the six-month-long talks in Vienna on the future of the Iran nuclear deal has begun. No deadline has been formally set, but if there is no progress in less than two weeks the process will come to an end leaving a dangerous vacuum.The White House has already been rolling the pitch preparing its political lines for a breakdown by saying the US withdrawal from the agreement by Donald Trump in 2018 has proved to be a disaster. If there is no agreement, the Biden team intend Trump will take the blame. Continue reading...

South Korean military says Pyongyang launched two ballistic missiles, which Tokyo says threaten its ‘peace and security’North Korea has launched two suspected ballistic missiles, in the fourth test this month, drawing condemnation from Japan and adding to pressure on the US.South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said Monday’s launch appeared to involve two short-range ballistic missiles, fired east towards the sea from the Sunan airfield in the capital Pyongyang. Continue reading...

Police have grave concerns for Charlise Mutten’s safety, but good weather has given them hope

Artist James Concannon claims in lawsuit that toy company made a ‘blatant copy’ of a jacket he made for Queer Eye cast member Antoni PorowskiAn artist has accused Lego of recreating a leather jacket he made for Queer Eye cast-member Antoni Porowski without the artist’s permission, claiming that a toy jacket included in a Lego set based on the Netflix show is a “blatant copy” of his design.James Concannon, whose clothes have been regularly worn by Porowski on the popular program, filed a lawsuit against the Danish toy giant in a Connecticut district court last month. The designer, who is seeking damages, alleges that one of the outfits included in the set for Porowski’s figurine copies “the unique placement, coordination, and arrangement of the individual artistic elements” on the jacket. Continue reading...

There has been no update on the fate of Angela Glover who is missing after a tsunami following a volcanic eruptionThe brother of a British woman who was swept away from the coast of Tonga by the tsunami on Saturday and is still missing, has told the Guardian he has grave fears for her safety.“What are we, 48 hours later? I don’t think this is going to have a happy ending,” an emotional Nick Eleini said. Continue reading...

‘It’s as simple as that,’ Scott Morrison says, despite immigration minister not disputing tennis star’s belief he had valid vaccination exemption

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić criticises the Australian federal court's decision to dismiss Novak Djokovic's visa appeal as 'political'. 'Of course, all of us in Serbia are very much disappointed with the court's ruling,' says Vučić. 'I think Australian authorities humiliated themselves with these kinds of procedures against Novak Djokovic.'Djokovic was trying to use a medical exemption to get around the requirements that everyone at the Australian Open - players, their support teams, spectators and others - be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Accusations of staff breaching Covid rules latest in troubled few years for Hong Kong flag carrier

More than 20 Peruvian ports closed while TV images show seawater flooding homes and businesses in country’s centre and north

Mortgage approvals have dropped from 30,000 a month to 23,000 as lenders apply stricter rules introduced in DecemberBanks in New Zealand are rejecting home-loans over minor frivolous spending, including a $187 Kmart Christmas shop and a daily drink bought at a corner store, and money spent on pets or petrol, pushing the government to investigate whether banks are overreacting to new finance rules designed to protect vulnerable borrowers from predatory lenders.The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA), updated in early December, requires all lenders to complete thorough checks to ensure loans are suitable and affordable for their customers. Continue reading...

Latest updates: UK Labour leader says PM broke lockdown rules and then lied; latest daily UK figures do not include Scotland

Former Scottish Tory leader says she almost did not run for post in 2011 because of concerns that medical records would come outThe former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has said she almost did not run for the position because she feared her history of mental health problems would be exposed.The life peer was diagnosed with clinical depression in her first year at university and said she was concerned that standing for the role of leader in 2011 would result in her medical history coming out. Continue reading...

Oxfam calls for windfall tax as 99% of world population takes a pay cut while top 10 incomes grow by $1bn a day

Government insider says announcement about abolishing licence fee was not expected this weekend

Hollywood heavyweights including Kyle MacLachlan bring coronavirus-hit week to a closePrada called on Hollywood heavyweights Jeff Goldblum and Kyle MacLachlan to bookend its catwalk on Sunday afternoon, bringing a close to a quiet menswear fashion week that saw multiple brands cancel their shows in light of increasing Covid cases across Europe.The appearance of the actors at the Fondazione Prada punctuated the second physical catwalk show from founder Miuccia Prada and her co-creative director Raf Simons since the latter came onboard in early 2020, marking an unprecedented union of two of the fashion industry’s most influential and famed designers. Continue reading...

Monday: Serbia’s leaders hit out at treatment of Novak Djokovic, who boarded a flight out of Australia on Sunday night. Plus: how American tinned meat, Spam, came to be loved in AsiaGood morning. Novak Djokovic has left Australia after his last-ditch court challenge failed. And the England Test side has once again failed to turn up with much fight, handing Australia a 4-0 Ashes series win.Novak Djokovic has been deported from Australia after the full federal court dismissed his bid to restore his visa. The Serbian tennis player was seen boarding a flight from Melbourne to Dubai hours after the court rejected his challenge to the decision of Australian immigration minister, Alex Hawke, to cancel the visa. In a statement Djokovic said he was “extremely disappointed” with the ruling. “I respect the court’s ruling and I will cooperate with the relevant authorities in relation to my departure from the country,” he said. Serbia’s leaders have hit out at Djokovic’s treatment. The prime minister, Ana Brnabić, criticised the decision to cancel the visa as “scandalous”. “I find it unbelievable that we have two completely contradictory court decisions within the span of just a few days,” she said. The tennis world reacted with a mixture of silence and disappointment to Djokovic’s deportation and frustration that it had overshadowed the Australian Open. Continue reading...

Law will require people to have a certificate to enter public places such as restaurants and cinemas

One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stoppedTaliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women. Continue reading...

Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their livesGul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

President and prime minister condemn Australia’s ‘farcical’ deportation of world tennis No 1Serbia’s president has said Novak Djokovic had been “harassed … but not humiliated” and the prime minister called his treatment “scandalous” as the world tennis No 1’s home country reacted furiously to his deportation from Australia.After an 11-day saga, three judges unanimously upheld a decision by the immigration minister to cancel Djokovic’s visa because his presence might risk ‘civil unrest’ by stoking anti-vaccination sentiment, removing any chance of him winning a 21st grand slam at the Australian Open. Continue reading...

Man in his 40s held on suspicion of manslaughter after accident in region of Flaine, Haute-SavoieA five-year-old British girl has died after being hit by a skier in the French Alps, according to French media.A man in his 40s was being held on suspicion of manslaughter on Sunday after the accident in the resort of Flaine, Haute-Savoie, at about 11am on Saturday, Le Dauphine reported. The girl was said to have been taking part in a group ski lesson run by ESF (Ecole du Ski Français) with four other children on a blue (intermediate) piste. Continue reading...

Shutout doctors and the state opposition raise concerns Mark McGowan’s government is refusing entry for essential workers

An outbreak in a small regional community could leave locals unable to access pharmaceutical and banking services

Duke of Sussex taking legal action against UK government to allow him to pay privately for securityThe Duke of Sussex believes the UK is too dangerous for him and his family to visit without state protection as it emerged he is taking legal action against the government to allow him to pay privately for police security while in Britain.Prince Harry lost taxpayer-funded police security when he and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020. The couple pays for private security in the US, where they now live. Continue reading...

The Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips held back tears recalling his daughter’s death in lockdown as he quizzed a senior Conservative MP about 'partygate'.After recalling the events around his daughter's death, the presenter asked the Conservative chair, Oliver Dowden: 'Does the prime minister really understand why people are angry?'

First in a new series about people left behind in Afghanistan, meet Asif, who worked for the UN and Adam Smith International before fleeing to PakistanAsif* has lost almost everything since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. His wife was shot dead. He fled to Pakistan but has no legal status there and is living in a mosque while seeking treatment for recurrent cancer. He worked for the United Nations and other international organisations including the former UK Department for International Development (DfID). Until 2016 he also worked for Adam Smith International on British government-funded projects.In September, my wife went to the house of one my relatives with another family member to collect some of our belongings – she was three months pregnant with our first child. They went at midnight, so they wouldn’t be seen or recognised. Continue reading...