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Police continue to question 18-year-old suspect and say incident is not being treated as terrorism

Police bomb squad confirms discovery near Passau as rubber sex toy in shape of hand grenadeA German police bomb squad called to investigate a suspected hand grenade in a Bavarian forest has revealed that the object was a rubber sex toy.A jogger reported finding a bag containing the device on Monday in a forest outside the city of Passau, near Germany’s borders with Austria and the Czech Republic. Continue reading...

Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole was adamant he had to help drowning woman, says friend who was with himA 20-year-old man who died trying to rescue a drowning woman from the Thames was adamant he must jump into the water in spite of the serious risk to himself, his friend has said.Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole, known to friends and family as Jimi, died on Saturday night, after trying to rescue the woman in the waters around London Bridge. On Tuesday, his friend Bernard Kosia, who was with him, described him as a hero. Continue reading...

Authorities lambast British-born Paul Harris for criticising treatment of pro-democracy campaignersBeijing and Hong Kong authorities have accused the British-born head of Hong Kong’s bar association of being an “anti-China politician” after he criticised jail sentences imposed on pro-democracy activists.Paul Harris, a human rights lawyer and the chair of the HKBA, had represented one of 10 people convicted this month for organising or attending unauthorised assemblies during the pro-democracy protests in 2019. The defendants were given a range of suspended sentences or immediate jail terms of up to 18 months. Continue reading...

Brother of the late actor congratulates the 83-year-old, as Academy criticised for not allowing Hopkins to make his acceptance speech on ZoomThe family of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who had been widely expected to received a posthumous best actor Oscar for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, have come to the defence of the man who took the prize.The brother of the actor, who died last August of cancer aged 43, says the family had no hard feelings towards Anthony Hopkins. Continue reading...

Experts call on federal advisory group to reflect importance of airborne spread, as WA asks commonwealth to repurpose immigration detention facilities and airbasesAustralia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, has said the country’s hotel quarantine system is fit for purpose and has been “very successful” – but he admits improvements could always be made.Kelly was questioned on Tuesday night by a parliamentary committee examining the federal government’s handling of Covid-19. He was quizzed about the hotel quarantine system following the most recent leak of the virus into the community in Perth. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world Continue reading...

European commission president speaks before MEPs prepare to consent to Brexit agreementUrsula von der Leyen has warned that the EU will not hesitate to use the “real teeth” in the Brexit deal to punish the British government for breaching its obligations as MEPs prepared to consent to the historic agreement, marking the end of four years of high political drama.Speaking ahead of an evening vote by MEPs, where a positive result is not in question, the European commission president said the trade and cooperation agreement would give the EU more leverage over the UK. Continue reading...

Wayne Fella Morrison had no criminal convictions and died three days after being restrained and taken to high security areaA South Australian prison officer has denied directing other staff to destroy records, during evidence to an inquest into the death in custody of Wayne Fella Morrison – the first hearing to be held in two years.The coroner resumed hearing evidence on Tuesday five years after the death of Morrison, a 29-year-old Wiradjuri, Kokatha and Wirangu man who died on 26 September 2016 at the Royal Adelaide hospital. Continue reading...

First-time director Fernanda Valadez conjures up a vision of real evil in her story of the terrors faced by migrants into the USThere is unbearable heartbreak in this migrant drama from first-time Mexican film-maker Fernanda Valadez – and also a vision of real evil. At times, it looks something like social-realist folk horror. Mercedes Hernández plays Magdalena, a middle-aged woman from Guanajuato in central Mexico whose teenage son Jesús left home three years before, with a friend, on a bus bound for the border, where he’d hoped to take his chances on disappearing into the US as an illegal. But the body of Jesús’s friend has been found on Mexican territory, in an unspeakably grim holding area where the corpses of teen runaways are routinely kept in container boxes awaiting identification – though there is still no proof that Jesús himself is dead. Continue reading...

National cabinet agrees to give athletes priority in vaccine rollout; two more Aboriginal deaths in custody confirmed; Australia to send health supplies to India amid country’s coronavirus surge. Follow the latest

Thérèse Coffey says public does not care about makeover of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flatSoon-to-be-published annual accounts will “tidy up” the controversy over the funding of the refurbishment of the prime minister’s Downing Street flat, according to a government minister.In an interview with Sky News, the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, sought to play down growing accusations of sleaze, and claimed the public did not care about the makeover of the apartment after the prime minister said he would foot the £58,000 bill himself. Continue reading...

Fatima Khalil school has given some children the first taste of education – and love – in their livesLaughter and excited chatter burst out of the colourfully painted classrooms. In a quiet garden schoolhouse amid the jam-packed Afghan capital, Kabul, pupils run around, study and play in the country’s first official school for children with disabilities.It’s a far cry from what most of these children have previously experienced. For many, it’s the first time in their lives they feel loved and accepted. Continue reading...

Against a backdrop of Covid, a striking number of musicians, from hard rock to jazz, made music rich with positivity. In the first of a two-part series, they tell their storiesI had really given up on music after my mom passed away [in 2014], and then of course the record that I saw as my death rattle [2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet] got picked up in a big way. It was a very bittersweet moment where all these great things were happening in the wake of loss. I didn’t allow myself to feel that for a long time. Now I feel ready to embrace feeling. Continue reading...

From Bling Empire to Made in Chelsea, the uberwealthy trend in TV is here to stay – and it might even be good for diversityIn the first episode of reality TV show Bling Empire, heiress Anna Shay commits to an excursion so globe-straddlingly audacious it would make Greta Thunberg weep. Los Angeles resident Anna asks a friend and her objectively awful boyfriend to go to her favourite restaurant with her – in Paris. They chart a private plane, eat their dinner and head back to LA the next day. It sets the scene for a series that luxuriates in the lives of the super-rich, and the candour, conflict and rule-breaking that such an existence affords.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

In last year, 23 Texas towns have declared themselves ‘sanctuary cities for the unborn’, making the procedural punishable, and in April, a Nebraska village became the 24thOver the last year of the pandemic, 23 tiny towns in Texas have approved local laws declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn”, passing ordinances to make the procedure punishable by a $2,000 fine.In April, the tiny village of Hayes Center, Nebraska, became the 24th, and the first outside Texas. Continue reading...

Lifeboats launched an average of 42 times a day, with more people heading to usually quiet spotsThe Royal National Lifeboat Institution saved 140 lives last summer as crowds of people headed to the seaside after the first lockdown, an increase of more than 30% on the same period the previous year.Water safety experts at the RNLI said there was a sharp increase in the number of people getting into difficulty while using standup paddleboards and that its lifeboats were scrambled to more rescues at traditionally less popular spots as people hunted for a quiet space away from the masses. Continue reading...

Research finds ‘quite a strong association between shift working and being hospitalised for Covid-19’

Tuesday: Essential Poll finds half of Australians over 50 unwilling to get AstraZeneca jab. Plus: Jeff Sparrow on Scott Morrison’s climate culture warGood morning! As vaccine hesitancy increases in Australia, India is running out of vaccines as its Covid crisis deepens. There’s talk of a female-friendly budget in the works and some strange smelling candles hitting the market.A rise in vaccine hesitancy is threatening to derail the federal government’s already troubled rollout, with less than half of people aged over 50 willing to get the AstraZeneca vaccine despite it being recommended by Australia’s health officials, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. Despite the government’s attempts to reassure the public that the vaccination strategy remains safe after changed health advice for the AstraZeneca jab, one in six people can now be described as vaccine hesitant – the highest proportion since data on this measure was first recorded in August last year. Continue reading...

Former English National Ballet principal Yat-Sen Chang goes on trial facing 14 chargesA former English National Ballet principal dancer used his “power and prestige” to sexually abuse young dance students in his care, a court has heard.Yat-Sen Chang, 49, has been charged with 12 counts of sexual assault and two counts of assault by penetration against a female aged 16 or over. Continue reading...

European commission president says she was left feeling ‘hurt and alone’ after incident at summit in TurkeyUrsula von der Leyen, the first female president of the European commission, has said she felt hurt and alone after being left by two male leaders without a chair at a summit in Turkey, describing it as evidence of the unequal treatment of the sexes.In one of the most impassioned speeches of her tenure – made in the presence of Charles Michel, the president of the European council, who was one of the two men at the talks – Von der Leyen said she had been left standing because she was a woman. Continue reading...

David Robertson accused of ‘sinister’ statement after appearing to be unmasked as undercover officerAn undercover officer terrified a woman with a “nasty” threat of violence to her family after she appeared to unmask him as a police spy, a public inquiry has heard.The undercover officer, David Robertson, has also been accused of pulling her away forcefully by the wrist after she had identified him at a public meeting. Continue reading...

UN-led meeting in Geneva aims to re-energise efforts to end dispute four years after talks collapsedLeaders from either side of Cyprus’s ethnic divide have flown to Geneva for a UN-led summit aimed at exploring whether the time is ripe to resume the peace process four years after the collapse of talks to reunify the island.The foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain – Cyprus’s three guarantor powers – will join Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot teams in the hope of re-energising efforts to end the west’s longest-running dispute. Continue reading...

‘Brilliant and indispensable’ Bhattacharya worked with every south Asia correspondent since 2009

Government’s plans to ramp up the vaccination programme by the weekend under threat

Two veterans plead not guilty at Belfast crown court in trial over shooting of Joe McCann in 1972Two former paratroopers have denied murdering an Official IRA commander during the Troubles, in a closely watched trial in Northern Ireland.The two veterans, known as soldiers A and C, pleaded not guilty at Belfast crown court on Monday at the start of a trial over the shooting of Joe McCann on 15 April 1972. Continue reading...

Firm says it will ‘strongly defend itself’ against claim it breached agreement to supply Covid jab

Pair questioned in connection with attempted murder after device was discovered in Dungiven last weekTwo men have been arrested in connection with the attempted murder of a police officer.The Police Service of Northern Ireland said a 47-year-old man, who was arrested in the Dungiven area of County Derry, and another man aged 48, who was arrested in the Feeny area, were taken to Musgrave serious crime suite. Continue reading...

Asset manager says new name reflects ‘clarity of focus’ but critics point out pronunciation issuesStandard Life Aberdeen has announced it is changing its name to Abrdn – pronounced “Aberdeen” – in a move that prompted immediate criticism of the asset manager’s “ill-thought out” rebranding.The Edinburgh-based company, which dates back to 1825, said that the vowel-banishing change reflected a “modern, agile, digitally-enabled brand”. The new name, however, was not universally well received on Monday. Continue reading...

British-Iranian aid worker has also been banned from leaving country for a year, her lawyer has said

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s last work starts as a sentimental elegy to cinema-going’s golden age but takes us through the heart of Japanese darknessNobuhiko Ôbayashi is the Japanese film-maker who directed the cult 1977 horror Hausu, or House, and in his long and prolific career also specialised in TV ads starring American movie actors for the domestic market (satirised in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation). Just before his death last year, at the age of 82, he completed this film, his valediction to cinema, to Japan and to life: an epic blitz of pop-culture hyperactivity: baffling, surreal, tragicomic, then simply tragic. At first, it looks as if it is going to be a sentimental lump-in-the-throat elegy to cinema-going’s golden age. But then it takes us to the heart of Japanese darkness: the second world war and the atomic bomb.In the present day, a movie theatre in Onomichi, near Hiroshima, is playing an all-nighter of war movies and three guys in the audience, cinephile Mario (Takuro Atsuki), owlishly bespectacled Shigeru (Yoshihiko Hosoda) and yakuza tough guy Hosuke (Takahito Hosoyamada) are so entranced that they are magically transported through the screen and into the films. There they repeatedly encounter a mysterious little girl called Noriko (Rei Yoshida), a symbol of innocence and hope. Continue reading...

Hundreds gathered at a vigil to pay tribute to ‘beloved daughter, sister and mother’ who was killed last weekMother-of-three Kelly Wilkinson has been remembered as a “strong, fierce woman with an enormous heart” at a vigil in the Gold Coast.Hundreds gathered in Parkwood on Monday afternoon to pay tribute to the 27-year-old, who was killed last Wednesday. Her estranged husband has been charged with her murder. Continue reading...

Just 1.3% of Japan’s population have received at least first dose, with less than 90 days until Games

People are stockpiling medicine and oxygen as hospitals struggle to access supplies

Premier Peter Gutwein says the government will be talking with police and race officials about how the island’s 2,000km rally may have to change in futureMotorsports Australia will establish a special investigatory tribunal to examine two fatal crashes that killed three people at Targa Tasmania over the weekend.Veteran competitor Shane Navin, 68, was killed after his 1979 Mazda RX-7 rolled on Friday morning on the Lyell Highway in Tasmania’s remote west. Emergency crews were unable to revive Navin. His co-driver, Glenn Evans, escaped uninjured. Continue reading...

An epic in memoriam segment has taken place at the 93rd Academy Awards in Los AngelesThe 93rd Oscars in Los Angeles have paid lengthy tribute to film-makers and actors who have died over the past 14 months, since the last Academy Awards.Angela Bassett introduced a montage of deceased artists, prefaced with an acknowledgement of the some three million people who have to date died from coronavirus. Continue reading...

Parts of KRI Nanggala including its rudder, anchors and outer body found scattered at bottom of seaA missing Indonesian submarine has been found, broken into at least three parts, deep in the Bali Sea, army and navy officials have said, as the president sent condolences to relatives of the 53 crew.On Sunday, the Indonesian military head, Hadi Tjahjanto, said there was no chance of finding any of the crew alive. Continue reading...

Monday: WA premier Mark McGowan in war of words with Peter Dutton over quarantine as capital awaits news of lockdown. Plus: a GP on how to fix mental health systemGood morning. It’s Monday 26 April: a lockdown decision is due out of Perth, there’s new pressure on companies to act on climate, and conflict with China may still be on the table. (Plus, the Oscars are on later this morning.)Western Australian premier Mark McGowan will decide this morning, local time, whether or not to extend a three-day snap lockdown for the Perth and Peele region after no new Covid cases were locally acquired yesterday – though he has said “people should get used to the prospect that there will be some further measures that continue”. He blamed the federal government for allowing too many Australians to travel overseas to attend “weddings” and “athletics meets” during the pandemic – pushing back after defence minister Peter Dutton earlier said McGowan’s government had made a “mistake” in using the hotel where the latest Covid-19 leak originated. While the man who contracted Covid in quarantine then boarded a flight to Melbourne (after five days in the community in Perth), Victoria has so far not recorded any new cases following testing of flight passengers. Continue reading...

Party says Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings must be summoned to give evidence on how works were paid forThe Electoral Commission must legally summon Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Conservative officials to give evidence on how the prime minister paid for refurbishments to his Downing Street flat, Labour has said.Calling on the commission to launch a formal investigation, lawyers for the party said the matter was “incontrovertibly in the public interest”. Continue reading...

Javad Zarif says the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander assassinated in 2020 dominated Iranian diplomacyIran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has criticised the dominance of the assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Suleimani in Iranian diplomacy, and admitted his own influence over Iranian foreign policy was sometimes zero in a leaked audio recording.The remarks are from an interview the Iranian foreign ministry admits Zarif gave last March, but it says has been distorted through selective quotes. The leak was claimed as an exclusive by Iran International, a Persian language network viewed by Tehran as hostile and owned by Saudi Arabians. Continue reading...

Exclusive: bereaved families are told that ‘people who would need to give evidence’ are ‘working round clock’

Decision not to try Kobili Traoré over 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi, 65, has provoked international outrageThousands of protesters have rallied in Paris and across France after the killer of a Jewish woman was declared unfit to stand trial because he was judged to have suffered a psychotic episode caused by cannabis use.Kobili Traoré is accused of beating 65-year-old Lucie Attal – better known as Sarah Halimi – and throwing her from the balcony her Paris apartment in 2017. Continue reading...

Rawdah Mohamed, whose Instagram selfie went viral, says she wants to fight ‘deeply rooted stereotypes’A Somali-Norwegian model whose Instagram post criticising a proposed ban on the hijab in France went viral has said she wants to fight “deeply rooted stereotypes” against Muslim women.Rawdah Mohamed posted a selfie on Instagram with “hands off my hijab” written on her hand, starting a campaign that has been trending on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Continue reading...

The chatshow host on his new novel, his pride in appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race and why Ireland is in a sweet spot right nowBroadcaster and author Graham Norton, 58, grew up in County Cork. He moved to London to go to drama school, before becoming a standup comedian. His TV breakthrough was in the sitcom Father Ted. His BBC chatshow began in 2007 and has won five Baftas, while his Virgin Radio show is broadcast on weekend mornings. Norton has commentated on the Eurovision song contest since 2009 and is a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. His third novel, Home Stretch, is out in paperback this week.Home Stretch traces the fallout from a car crash. Was it based on a real-life incident?

MPs and activists urge their leader to commit to aligning Britain with Brussels and restoring EU programmesKeir Starmer, the Labour leader, is coming under pressure from Europhile MPs and party activists to support sweeping changes to the Brexit deal as concern rises about the damage it is doing to Britain’s economy and jobs and the freedom to move and work across the continent.A report for the leftwing group Another Europe is Possible and separate research by the non-aligned, internationalist Best for Britain organisation both strongly support the case for more active engagement with the EU to improve the deal and rebuild relations with member states. Continue reading...

When calamity strikes, people on low incomes face the toughest time and in the UK their margin of comfort is thinAsk an economist how unequal the UK is and they’ll answer by reeling off our nation’s Gini coefficient – currently 33.5. This will not help you much. Sometimes, they’ll note this is a high level of inequality, compared with 33.1 in Germany or 28.5 in France. That will provide a sense of ordering – UK income inequality is high – but not much by way of meaning. Gini chat is not exactly what our newly reopened pubs are full of. So this week’s Insight comes in chart form to illustrate what abstract talk of different inequality levels means and why it matters. Continue reading...

Like its two acclaimed predecessors, Sahota’s new novel, China Room, shines a light on contemporary British Asian life – and poverty in 20th-century India. But, says the Derby-born author, class, not race, is his overriding concernSince the publication of his debut novel, Ours Are the Streets, in 2011, Sunjeev Sahota’s literary output has worked emphatically within the geopolitical fabric of our time, reaching into the darker recesses of the British Asian experience and humanising those most vilified in the rightwing press – the homegrown terrorist (in Ours Are the Streets) and the undocumented migrants (in his Booker prize-shortlisted follow-up, The Year of the Runaways, in 2015).His third novel, China Room (published next month), continues in this vein. It’s a multigenerational love story set simultaneously against a backdrop of rural poverty in northern India in 1929 and of social deprivation in northern England in 1999. This sophisticated canvas resonates with news stories about farmers’ protests in Punjab and racial segregation in British towns, and speaks in diverse tongues of the subaltern – the illiterate teenage bride, the adolescent junkie – producing what Sahota describes as “a conversation [that runs through the novel] about intergenerational trauma and how it does continue to move forward”. Continue reading...

In the latest part of our End Femicide campaign, we examine how stalking, coercive control and pornography lie behind so many of the killings of 272 young women in 10 years. Will the domestic abuse bill, due to become law this week, do enough to keep women safe?Alice Ruggles was described by her friends and family as vibrant, witty and “sharp as a tack”. She loved life. Then, in January 2016, aged 24, she met Lance Corporal Trimaan “Harry” Dhillon, who was 26. She didn’t know that he had a restraining order taken out on him by a previous girlfriend.Dhillon began to coercively control Ruggles, isolating her from friends. In July, having learned that he was cheating on her, she ended their seven-month relationship. Dhillon turned into a stalker. He frequently drove 100 miles from his camp in Edinburgh to spy on her, leaving unwanted flowers and chocolates. He continually texted and threatened to post intimate photographs. He told her on voicemail that he didn’t want to kill her, he wouldn’t kill her. Continue reading...

Thomas Heatherwick is the urban designer behind some of the world’s most pioneering landmarks. He talks about ‘soulfulness’ in cities, ‘heart-centred’ offices – and seducing people into being together againDuring the past year, the beguiling urban designer Thomas Heatherwick has, along with just about everyone else, spent many hours walking alone in empty streets, wondering what happens next. One of the thoughts that has bounced around in his head on those walks has been this: “Many people are realising that they may hardly have to go anywhere ever again.” A consequence of that realisation – the conclusion of the enforced mass experiment of working and socialising and shopping from your kitchen table – will, he believes, cause “a lot of hard-nosed businessmen” to confront a question that has been fundamental to his own thinking ever since he set up in practice 27 years ago. “What might make people want to come to this place?”Heatherwick is talking to me from his studio in King’s Cross, London, an area that he is helping to reimagine on a grand scale: his Coal Drops Yard development, an upscale shopping and café complex landscaped and wow-factored from blackened-brick Victorian warehousing, opened in 2018; nearby his co-design for the new Google UK campus, a “landscraper” with a rooftop park, is slowly taking shape. The studio wall behind him is alive with ferns and trailing plants that half-cover schoolroom maps of the world – a potted version of the cascades of foliage and trees that are integrated into many of his city centre designs, including his ill-fated Garden Bridge across the Thames. Continue reading...