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Spectrum of measures including incentives and hardline laws have met with responses varying from rise in uptake to wave of protests

Custodial sentences for rioters were much harsher, despite a fifth never having committed a crime beforePressures in the criminal justice system meant it failed to distinguish between repeat offenders and people “caught up” in the 2011 English riots, a former chief prosecutor has said.More than 2,000 people were convicted of riot-related offences with harsh sentences doled out. The average custodial sentence for riot-related cases was more than double compared with similar offences in 2010 in magistrates courts, while in crown courts it rose by three-quarters, according to Ministry of Justice analysis. Continue reading...

Volunteer struck at their post during British Automobile Racing Club championship eventA volunteer marshal has died after being hit by a car which spun off the track during a race at the Brands Hatch circuit.An air ambulance landed on the circuit after police and paramedics were sent to the track near Dartford, Kent, at 3pm on Saturday. Continue reading...

Academics predict that northern dialects will soon fade away. That’s nobbut a load of soft southern bletherAh, the stalwarts of summer! Cowes, Goodwood, the Proms and, these days, gloomy academic prognostications about the future of northern accents. Last summer, Manchester University claimed that the speech differences of the big northern cities were fading, merging into a generalised uber-northern that, implausibly, might include Alan Bennett, Ant and Dec and Atomic Kitten. This year, Cambridge and Portsmouth “eggheads” (compulsory designation) tell us, yet more gloomily, that northern accents could start dying out within 45 years, drowned by the rising tide of “estuary” English and the dominance of southern dialects which apparently are “easier to pick up” for children.Really? Easier to pick up where? Where are these weird kids? The mean streets of Cheltenham perhaps but not Chorlton. From my experience, Mancs are getting more Manc, Geordies more Geordie and Scousers more adenoidal with every passing football and festival season, brandishing their glottal stops and short a’s as if they were cudgels. But there is more. Continue reading...

Signs that detainees were victims of trafficking are being overlooked, say campaignersLawyers are challenging the Home Office policy of deporting people to Vietnam who could be victims of trafficking after the UK sent a second charter flight to the country within a matter of weeks.The challenge follows concern from lawyers and charities that some victims of trafficking could be wrongly removed from the UK under a speedy processing system for migrants in detention known as “detained asylum casework”. Continue reading...

Gladys Berejiklian says higher vaccination rates the ‘only way to live with Delta’ as Queensland cluster grows to 18 on first day of snap lockdown

The novelist on her first book of nonfiction – about women and disgust – and the complexities of prize cultureEimear McBride, 44, is the bestselling author of three novels: A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, which won the Women’s prize for fiction and the Goldsmith’s prize, The Lesser Bohemians and Strange Hotel. Her first work of nonfiction, Something Out of Place: Women and Disgust, is the result of an invitation by the Wellcome Collection to explore its museum and library, housed on Euston Road in London. She lives in east London with her family.How did your new book come about?

Computer outage, staff shortages and pandemic disruption causing turmoil for families and businesses in England and WalesThe Home Office was accused last night of causing “turmoil for families” after a failure in its online system for registering births, deaths and marriages created frustration and anger across England and Wales.As people reported being unable to register their important “life events” – with resulting disruption to their plans to travel, claim benefits and take out savings plans among a range of other knock-on effects – local authorities were warning of further serious delays. Continue reading...

Daughter of Holocaust survivor pledges to continue her fight for family property seized by Nazi occupiersA few years ago, Shoshana Greenberg stood outside a building in Lodz, Poland, once owned by her family, with an old photograph in her hands and tears running down her face.Greenberg, now 74 and living in Tel Aviv, was on a quest to reclaim property lost during the Holocaust. Her father was head of a prominent, wealthy Jewish family in Lodz that owned industrial buildings, residential homes and holiday properties. Continue reading...

The government’s hesitant and incoherent policy serves only to create suspicion and offer ammunition to anti-vaxxers

Despite being only 29, Shailene Woodley already has 25 years’ acting experience under her belt. Here, the star of Big Little Lies and Divergent talks about being free-willed, her hippy passions and her late-night calls with Kate WinsletThe one and only time Shailene Woodley beams during our time together – a long conversation over Zoom, on a bright weekday morning – is when my young son sneaks into the room in which I’m bent over a laptop, points at the stranger appearing on-screen, and asks, not quietly, “Who’s that?”There is nothing to do but introduce them. Continue reading...

Pilot scheme hopes to discover patterns that will help prevent more deathsMeasures are being introduced to try to identify what is driving rising murder rates in the wake of a spike in teenage deaths in some of the UK’s homicide hotspots.All homicides in London, Birmingham and south Wales will be reviewed by the authorities in an attempt to learn from the chaotic sequences of events that often preempt a death. Continue reading...

The singer is back in front of a live audience this week, playing ‘a woman with a real point of view’ in a spooky new play, 2:22 – A Ghost StoryThere, in the background, wearing drop pearl earrings, is 13-year-old Lily Allen dressed up as a little lady-in-waiting. Cinema audiences watching Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth when the film of that name came out in 1998 might have been concentrating on the queen’s courtly dancing in the middle of the frame, but yes, it really was Allen playing a mini royal favourite in director Shekhar Kapur’s lavish production.Now, more than two decades later, the 36-year-old singer-songwriter is taking centre stage as an actress in the West End, appearing in a spooky new play, 2:22 – A Ghost Story, which opens this week. Continue reading...

This unflinching memoir by the son of Ian Dury recalls his chaotic life with the ‘pot-soaked Fagin’ and his bodyguardThe first time Baxter Dury performed on stage was at his famous father’s wake. While various stars worked their way through the Ian Dury songbook, Baxter, who had recently launched his musical career at the age of 29, was the obvious choice to reprise My Old Man, Ian’s tribute to his own father, Bill Dury. A working-class east Londoner, bus driver and chauffeur, Bill hadn’t figured large in the life of his son, who was raised by his mother and her family, members of what Baxter calls “the bohemian intelligentsia”.It’s tempting to suggest that one absent father led to another. Certainly, Ian had an elastic sense of parental responsibility, leaving his marriage to Betty Rathmell soon after the birth of Baxter and his older sister Jemima, then showing up erratically while contributing “a pittance” to their upkeep. His ambition to become a lead singer was all that counted, pursued first with Kilburn and the High Roads, and later with the Blockheads, once 1977’s New Boots and Panties!! had secured his breakthrough at age 35 (six-year-old Baxter is there on the album’s classic cover). With a severe physical disability, inflicted by polio when he was seven, Ian was an unlikely rock star and had become an even more unlikely national treasure by the time of his death in 2000. Continue reading...

A fall in case numbers last month raised hopes that Britain may be reaching herd immunity, but experts warn against complacency, given uncertainty about new variants and autumn’s return to school

As TV revisits the scandal, the author of an acclaimed play about it asks what the media and key institutions have learned – and whether survivors are now treated any betterJournalistic parlour game question: what are the most significant news stories of the past decade? Few would argue with the pandemic and Brexit. Not far behind, perhaps, is the Jimmy Savile scandal.Not many stories change our world. This one did. It transformed how we deal with allegations of sexual assault. We reassessed our attitude to celebrity. We saw more clearly than ever how morally corrupt institutions could be. It was the harbinger of the #MeToo movement. Continue reading...

Toyota’s giant AI robot is halftime’s hottest attraction … and the weather gods are having a ballSpectators aren’t the only thing missing from these Games. Much of the next-generation technology due to be showcased here is too. Toyota had planned to use driverless cars at the Games and had made robots for the new Olympic stadium that, among other things, could take, then bring, food and drinks orders to spectators using wheelchairs. Continue reading...

You don’t have to be sexual to feel love, but you do have to be openThe question I’m a guy in my mid-20s who also happens to be asexual. And no, I am not gay. I just can’t feel much, physically. I don’t see it as a problem, but people jump to conclusions online. No one other than me knows. I am in a relationship with this lovely girl and we have only been physically intimate occasionally (once or twice a month – been with her for four months), but it’s OK because she doesn’t have an insatiable need. But she doesn’t know the real me and I feel like I want to be honest with her. And I’m afraid she might leave me because she once said that sex solves all issues in a relationship – I disagree.To me, sex is repulsive. I hate it. I also have problems with my erection, because I just don’t feel anything. She thinks it’s erectile dysfunction. I don’t want to lose her. I wish I could just be with asexual people, but that scene is pretty abysmal. Continue reading...

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv express anger over reimposed health orders in heavily vaccinated country

The trio are serving life sentences but prison governors have sent glowing reports of their behaviourThree members of Australia’s Bali Nine, who have served 16 years behind bars, should be forgiven and allowed to walk free one day, prison and justice ministry officials say.The three, who are jailed in Bali, are serving life sentences for their role in an ill-fated heroin-smuggling plot and unless they can win a reprieve from Indonesia’s president, will never be freed. Continue reading...

The firms are already taking the lion’s share of earnings from the market, as this week’s results will showPraised for preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths and allowing a return to more normal life, Covid vaccines will also substantially benefit some pharmaceutical companies.In June, analysts estimated the global market for the vaccines could be worth $70bn (£50bn) this year, but the figure could be even higher as the Delta variant of coronavirus spreads and scientists debate whether people will need booster shots. Continue reading...

Six dead from wildfires raging across Turkey, Italy and Greece as temperatures hit 40CHolidaymakers have been evacuated from beaches by rescue boats in Turkey after wildfires threatened hotels in the Aegean resort of Bodrum.Coastguard vessels were joined by private boats and yachts to bring the tourists to safety, according to Turkish media on Saturday. Videos posted online showed people wheeling their suitcases along the road while smoke from forest fires billowed into the sky. Continue reading...

Investors in talks to transfer management of Novalpina Capital to Berkeley Research Group, following long-running disputePublic investors in the private equity firm that owns a majority stake in the Israeli spyware company NSO Group are in talks to transfer management of that fund to Berkeley Research Group, a US consulting firm.Related: US voices concern with Israeli officials about Pegasus revelations Continue reading...

One woman believed to be in her 30s confirmed dead after blaze in West Midlands early on SaturdayA woman has died after a severe house fire in the West Midlands in the early hours of Saturday morning.Four fire engines and 19 firefighters responded to reports of a fire at a two-storey house in Harvest Road, Smethwick, at 4.35am on Saturday. Continue reading...

Western Afghan city all but under siege, prompting companies to hide documents in case staff are targetedOrganisations in the western Afghan city of Herat have begun removing important documents because of fears they could be used to target employees if seized by the Taliban, after three days of fighting raged around the city.Herat airport was closed by battles around its perimeter, militants attacked a UN compound, killing a guard, and half the city was without power after electricity lines from Iran were damaged in the fighting. Continue reading...

The response to the explosion in August 2020 has been marked by chaos and paralysis in what is now a failed stateAt ground zero of Lebanon’s apocalypse a stench of dead rats seeps from hulking piles of rotting grain. Broken silos teeter above, their sides ripped apart by the catastrophic blast that also broke the soul of Beirut; the contents that should have fed a nation still lie spilt over the gaping ruins of its main port.A year ago this week, one of the planet’s gravest industrial accidents caused one of its biggest ever explosions, shattering a city that was already at a tipping point. The mushroom cloud of chemicals that soared above the Lebanese capital on 4 August 2020 and the seismic force of the shock wave that ravaged its homes and businesses were carried around the world in high-definition horror. Even amid the chaos of a country that had allowed this to happen to its people, this was surely a moment of reckoning. Continue reading...

The actor on an exhibition that’s like a rave, the best crispy chicken and why he’s having to take a break from Kazuo Ishiguro’s latestDomhnall Gleeson was born in Dublin in 1983. Following his father, Brendan, into acting, he broke through in 2010 with small but memorable roles in Never Let Me Go, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as Bill Weasley) and True Grit. He played the lead in Frank and a romantic interest in Brooklyn, though he is probably best known as General Hux in the latest Star Wars trilogy. From 4 to 29 August, Gleeson stars in Enda Walsh’s new play, Medicine, at the Traverse theatre as part of the Edinburgh fnternational festival. He lives in Dublin. Continue reading...

The social media phenomenon on honouring his Somali heritage, balancing fame and faith, and spending lockdown with his YouTube Beta Squad“It was the scariest day of my life,” says Amin Mohamed, AKA Chunkz, of the day in 2016 that he told his parents he was dropping out of university to focus on his YouTube channel. “I remember waking up for a lecture during the first few weeks of university, and I genuinely stared at my ceiling for 45 minutes, near tears, just thinking: I can’t do this. I had this pressure [weighing on me] that my parents wouldn’t accept me leaving.”Chunkz is a first generation British Somali (his parents moved here from Somaliland in the late 80s). For me, also a first generation British Somali, he is, as a genuine celebrity from our community, a unique figure – and a local hero. Following in the steps of his three sisters, who had all graduated from university, he was studying financial maths at London Metropolitan University. For Somali kids, it’s not uncommon to have your parents push you toward a “reliable” career. So he stuttered his way through that moment, telling his parents about dropping out of university. His dad avoided eye contact and his mother became really upset. “As I was talking to them, I was doing damage control,” he says. Continue reading...

£4m scheme will form part of government effort to counter subject’s reputation as elitistLatin is to be taught at state schools across England in an effort to counter the subject’s reputation as one that is “elitist” and largely at private schools.A £4m Department for Education (DfE) scheme will initially be rolled out across 40 schools as part of a four-year pilot programme for 11- to 16-year-olds starting in September 2022. Continue reading...

A convict task force dispense gleeful mayhem in this stylish reboot from a director with the perfect sewer aestheticAfter one botched attempt to bring The Suicide Squad to the big screen, with the dourly competent David Ayer at the helm, this time DC Comics stumbled upon a more successful formula. The key: a director with a taste for anarchy, who crawled out of the same toxic sewer sludge as most of the characters. And in James Gunn, who cut his teeth working for gonzo shocksploitation production company Troma (Class of Nuke ’Em High, Tromeo and Juliet), they got just that.It’s a real meeting of sick minds, this revamp of the comic-book convict task force comprised of mutant sharks, killer clowns and the criminally insane. Gunn gleefully performs an initial bait and switch that is almost as unexpected as the Drew Barrymore cameo in Scream. The titles have barely rolled before the camera is drunkenly weaving like a bluebottle over the steaming entrails of characters we might have assumed were central to the story. Not to give too much away, but it pays not to get too attached to anyone. That said, Margot Robbie, returning as a perkily psychotic Harley Quinn, and Idris Elba, as literal killing machine Robert DuBois, are the ones you’d want on your side in a bar brawl. Continue reading...

The musician talks about growing up with a pop star dad, escaping his shadow – and the 6ft 7in drug dealer who lived with them• Read an exclusive extract from Chaise Longue: ‘After a certain point of drinking, Dad’s behaviour became a lottery’Baxter Dury strolls up to the pub, casually dressed and apologetic. The indie musician, known for his stylish suits, is wearing a white vest and unbuttoned denim shirt. His face is even whiter than the vest. Food poisoning. He ate oysters the other day, and has never been so sick. He orders a pineapple juice and soda water, sheepishly. “That’s going to be the headline, isn’t it?” The 2010 biopic about his father was named Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll – after one of Ian Dury’s most celebrated songs, and a fair summary of his life.But we’re not here to talk about Dad, says Baxter, a successful musician in his own right. It’s 21 years since his father died, and 19 since Baxter recorded his debut album, the fabulously titled Len Parrot’s Memorial Lift. Don’t get me wrong, he says, he loved the old man, but he’s got Ian Dury fatigue. He’s tired of the comparisons – their music, voice, looks and lifestyle. Continue reading...

Six weeks apart from my family is insignificant compared with the separation some have had to endure. Public health has deeply affected the private heartNot everyone likes each other. That would seem to be an uncontroversial take on contemporary society. I won’t waste my word count on examples; you obviously read the newspapers. But you’d be hard pushed to countenance the existence of such a bifurcated and tribalistic society if you spent time at an airport arrivals lounge. It was something I used to enjoy as a late teenager, until the closing credits of Love, Actually ruined it for me. I’d swing by Heathrow, get a copy of Sky Magazine from Smith’s and, with vampiric delight, sit and watch the emotional fireworks play out in front of me. Sure, some were a bit muted, a bit more “indoor sparkler” than others, but the big whoppers, the whiz-bangs, the Catherine wheels that spun loose from the tree – they could really set me up in a good mood for the rest of the week. Odd, maybe, but I was.Standing at arrivals, waiting for my family recently, having been separated from my children for the longest time since they were born, I was again struck by how happy everyone was to see each other. Not always shrieks-of-delight happy, not necessarily fall-to-the-floor-weeping, but everyone noticeably looked fuller, more rounded when their separate parts came together. A dad smirked as he fist-bumped his teenage sons, trying to disguise their pleasure as they posed for a photo. A group of friends ironically slow hand-clapped their mate as she sheepishly emerged, then gleefully pretended to ignore her as she bashed their shins with her trolley. An older woman fanned herself with a magazine, wrung her fingers and took down her mask to gulp some fresher air, before shouting into a laugh as her son and granddaughter walked out. They all did it with different signals, but all those signals said the same thing: life is better now that you’re here. Continue reading...

Every month in the UK, hundreds of homes are visited by police officers dropping a bombshell: someone has been viewing images of child abuse. What happens to the families left behind?It was an ordinary summer evening in 2016 for Emma when her ex-husband, Ben, dropped their young children back after a weekend visit at his place. The couple had been divorced for less than a year. Their split had brought with it the usual pain and sadness that comes when a long relationship ends, but things were amicable. He lived nearby in the town they had grown up in and saw the children almost daily.Emma was running a bath for the kids when she heard a knock on the door: “I thought he had forgotten something.” Instead, she was confronted by a female police officer, behind whom was her ex-husband, standing by his car, surrounded by plainclothes police.“I immediately thought someone was dead,” Emma says. “The policewoman told me to settle the children in front of the TV and before she even had time to tell me what had happened, the senior officer came in, looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m so sorry, life is never going to be the same again. The next few months are going to be hell.’ And then they told me they were arresting Ben for accessing indecent images of children. I felt like the world dropped away.” Continue reading...

From a play in a car park to an online event from a shed, this year’s festival is finding new ways to entertainThe Edinburgh festival fringe, at its height, was a magnificent monster. The largest arts festival in the world, it was exhilaratingly, dizzyingly, dauntingly huge and – like a city-consuming ooze from a 1950s B-movie – it kept growing, year after year. In 2019, the fringe featured more than 3,500 shows in over 300 venues. And that’s without taking into account its less chaotic sibling, the Edinburgh international festival.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

In an exclusive interview, Gen Z’s biggest pop star talks about body image, oversharing with fans and what she’s missed most since becoming famousBillie Eilish is making me nervous. She has called, as arranged, bang on time – 11pm in Los Angeles – but, she admits, she is not quite ready to speak: “This is a mess, I’m so sorry!” Her pale face and platinum hair loom from her phone screen, surrounded by darkness. Her head is at a funny angle and… oh God, she’s driving, her mobile apparently balanced on the car’s dashboard.Help! I don’t want to inadvertently cause the death of one of the world’s most gifted and valuable pop stars; to watch as a generation-defining musician at the top of her game crashes her car. Continue reading...

Will, 27, A&E doctor, meets Owen, 26, stage managerWhat were you hoping for?

Festivals and sporting events such as Goodwood will host pop-up vaccination centres in England this weekend

Man allegedly also waved colonial-era flags while watching fencer Edgar Cheung’s medal ceremony at a mallHong Kong police have arrested a man on suspicion of insulting the national anthem, after he allegedly booed the Chinese national anthem while watching an Olympic event at a mall.The 40-year-old man was detained on Friday after allegedly waving colonial-era Hong Kong flags and booing, while urging others to join him in insulting the song, according to a police statement posted on Facebook. Continue reading...

Louise Kerton went missing in 2001 after travelling to stay with her boyfriend’s family in GermanyTwenty years since the disappearance of Louise Kerton, who travelled to Germany to holiday with her boyfriend’s family and disappeared, her father is looking for fresh leads.Phil Kerton is hoping publicity to mark the anniversary might trigger memories or encourage police in Germany, the UK or Belgium – which she is supposed to have travelled through via rail and sea – to reopen the case. Continue reading...

Unsettled weather forecast across England and Wales with ‘torrential thundery downpours’ in the eastThe Met Office has issued weather and flood warnings as Storm Evert moved eastwards across Britain with thunderstorms forecast for the weekend.Yellow wind warnings are in place for coastal areas in south-east England and East Anglia, and thunderstorm warnings for a swath of England from Nottingham to Norwich and north as far as Hull. Continue reading...

WHO has not recorded higher mortality rates from Delta; First flights set off from UK to global destinations

US actor, 58. makes first public statement since collapsing on set of Better Call Saul earlier this weekBob Odenkirk, the actor and star of Better Call Saul, said Friday that he “had a small heart attack” but will “be back soon”.Related: Nobody review – Bob Odenkirk is a blast in action man mode Continue reading...

Samoa's first female prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa in her first sit-down interview with foreign media since taking office this week says there was 'a lot of excitement' in the Pacific nation about her election among women and girls . She also opened up about Samoa's relationship with China, saying that while 'of course we know what's happening in the global context' with the US-China tensions Samoa needed to be 'very focused on how we navigate our way through international relations'. Continue reading...

After months of political turmoil, following the country’s most contentious election, Fiama Naomi Mata’afa is ready to get to workThe prime minister’s office in Apia, the capital of Samoa, which overlooks the harbour, has just been vacated by the man who held the job for 22 years.The bookshelves are still empty, but the room is filled with bunches of flowers, sent by well-wishers keen to congratulate the new incumbent. Continue reading...

Israeli foreign minister contacts Dominic Raab and says ‘Iran is not just an Israeli problem’Israel has blamed Iran for a suspected drone attack on a tanker in the Arabian Sea that killed two crew, including a British national, and has vowed a harsh response.The Liberian flagged Mercer Street, which is linked to an Israeli tycoon, was hit off the coast of Oman late on Thursday in what is thought to have been a swarm attack involving multiple drones. Continue reading...

When restaurant owner Murat Aktan and his friends hit the road to take hot meals to firefighters battling wildfires in the Turkish Mediterranean town of Manavgat on Thursday evening, they had no idea of the ordeal which was awaiting them. After they distributed food to the fire crews, they turned back but found the road ahead of their car blocked by sheets of flame from burning trees and undergrowth. Video filmed by Aktan showed their car almost engulfed by fire as they desperately backed away from the flames and falling embers. The four friends eventually drove to safety and returned home after their ordeal. 'We went through hell,' Aktan told Reuters

Katharine Murphy speaks to journalist Gabrielle Chan about her upcoming book, Why you should give a f*ck about farming. Gabrielle talks about how farming is at the intersection of the world’s greatest existential threats. She also explains how food consumption has become increasingly tribal and polarised, which is very similar to the changes we’ve witnessed in politics over recent yearsGabrielle Chan’s book Why you should give a f*ck about farming is available from 31 August 2021. Continue reading...

An ancient Roman ship carrying a cargo load of wine jars, or amphorae, has been found underwater in the Mediterranean Sea off the Italian island of Sicily. The vessel was discovered during an underwater reconnaissance expedition by the island's Regional Agency for Environment Protection. The findings will shed light on Rome’s trade activity in the Mediterranean, where the Romans traded spices, wine, olives and other products in north Africa, Spain, France and the Middle East

Transport secretary Grant Shapps ‘acted irrationally and unlawfully’ when he approved the £1.7bn project, judge rulesCampaigners including archaeologists, environmental groups and druids have won a high court battle to prevent a controversial road project that includes a tunnel near Stonehenge.The £1.7bn scheme to overhaul eight miles of the A303 in Wiltshire next to the prehistoric monument was backed by the government last year, but campaigners launched a judicial review calling for the decision to be overturned. Continue reading...

Identity of assailants unknown, but Taliban fighters are known to have penetrated city after US withdrawalThe main UN compound in the capital of the western Afghan province of Herat was attacked by “anti-government elements” on Friday and at least one security guard was killed, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.The attack, involving rocket-propelled grenades and guns, happened hours after Taliban fighters penetrated deep into Herat city, and heavy clashes with Afghan security forces took place near the UNAMA provincial headquarters, officials said. Continue reading...