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The realities of ownership are dawning as the UK’s lockdown eases and the dogs left at home need to be looked after

Thomas Bach expected to give Japan the all-clear to host the Games, as PM secures extra vaccine doses from Pfizer to fight new virus waveSee all our coronavirus coverageThe head of the Olympic movement will visit Japan in May as the nation struggles to contain a surge in Covid-19 cases before the start of the Games, with Pfizer agreeing to supply extra vaccine doses to the country.Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, will attend a torch relay ceremony in the western city of Hiroshima on 17 May and meet prime minister Yoshihide Suga the next day, Kyodo News agency said on Saturday, citing sources close to the matter. Continue reading...

Two-year-old boy who was attacked after he wandered away from family ‘lucky not to sustain more injuries’, paramedics sayRangers investigating the savage mauling of a toddler by a dingo on Fraser Island have called for eyewitnesses to the attack to come forward.The two-year-old boy has wounds all over his body but will recover after a lone dingo repeatedly bit him early on Saturday. Continue reading...

As long-serving president Idriss Deby seems set for election win, fighting has broken out between army and rebels in country’s northThe US has ordered its non-essential diplomats out of Chad over fears of insurgent attacks on the capital, as early election results show president Idriss Deby is poised to continue his three-decade rule of the African nation.With armed groups appearing to be advancing on the capital, N’Djamena, the US State Department on Saturday ordered non-essential diplomats and families of American personnel to leave the country. Continue reading...

Russian opposition politician ‘at risk of cardiac arrest’ after going on hunger strike in penal colonyJailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny risks cardiac arrest at “any minute” as his health has rapidly deteriorated, doctors warned Saturday, urging immediate access to Russia’s most famous prisoner.On 31 March, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent went on hunger strike to demand proper medical treatment for back pain and numbness in his legs and hands. Continue reading...

News follows announcement of expulsion of 18 Russia diplomats identified as spies linked to 2014 blast that killed two peopleCzech police said on Saturday they were seeking two Russian men in connection with a 2014 blast that killed two people. The men, they said, hold passports used by the suspects in the attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal.The names match those used by the two men accused of poisoning Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Soviet-era nerve agent novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. Russia denied involvement in the poisoning, but about 300 diplomats were sent home in subsequent tit-for-tat expulsions. Continue reading...

When it rolls out free period products in schools the government should think about sustainability and educating boysAs Labour tries to fulfil its many election promises, there is one area it could score an easy win – the period product rollout scheduled for June.And if New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern is serious about ending period poverty, she needs to take a good look at England and Scotland. Continue reading...

The royal family have released a reading of The Patriarchs – An Elegy by Simon Armitage to mark the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. The poet laureate said that he wanted the poem to address the duke’s values and personality. ‘A lot of the commentary has been around duty and service – I saw it as a prompt for writing something dutiful, and in service of all people like him.’

World’s most populous nation is struggling with a surge of cases amid fears of ‘double mutant’ variantSee all our coronavirus coverage hereThe global coronavirus death toll was expected to reach 3 million on Saturday as the race for immunisation continues and countries such as India grapple with rising infections and new lockdowns.India, the world’s most populous country, racked up 234,692 Covid-19 infections in the 24 hours to Saturday morning, health ministry data showed, which was the eighth record daily increase in the last nine days. Continue reading...

The 200m-tonne haul dwarfs previous record as poachers turn to ivory substitute amid crackdown on elephant tusk tradeAround 200 tonnes of illegally harvested giant clam shells worth nearly $25m have been seized in the Philippines in one of the biggest known operations of its kind in the country.Conservationists have expressed alarm over the surging illicit trade in the endangered creatures, which are used as a substitute for ivory following a global crackdown in the trade of elephant tusks. Continue reading...

Claire, 33, global regulatory affairs, meets Chris, 33, senior statisticianWhat were you hoping for?

Jon Ryan Schaffer gave a guilty plea in hopes of getting a lighter sentence and will be considered for a witness security programA member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and heavy metal guitarist has become the first defendant to plead guilty to federal charges in connection with the insurrection at the US Capitol.Jon Ryan Schaffer, the frontman of the band Iced Earth, has agreed on Friday to cooperate with investigators in hopes of getting a lighter sentence, and the Justice Department will consider putting Schaffer in the federal witness security program, a US district judge said. Continue reading...

Queen will behave with dignity and courage but will need the support of the nation, says Justin WelbyThe Queen may behave “with extraordinary dignity and extraordinary courage” but the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral at Windsor Castle on Saturday will be an “anguished moment” for her, the archbishop of Canterbury has said.Justin Welby spoke as Buckingham Palace revealed there will be no sermon and no eulogy to Prince Philip, who for seven decades played a prominent role in the nation’s public life. Continue reading...

Advice comes as country’s clinicians claim P1 Covid variant more aggressive during pregnancy

Seeking to designate organisation as extremist group is most sweeping assault on opposition supporters yetThe Moscow prosecutor’s office has announced that it will seek to designate Alexander Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and his regional political headquarters as “extremist groups”, moving to in effect liquidate the jailed opposition leader’s political organisation in Russia.It is the most sweeping assault yet on supporters of Navalny, and comes after his two-and-a-half-year sentence on embezzlement charges and the arrest of his top aides on various charges following large protests in January and February. Continue reading...

Laura Sugden, who survived attack in east Yorkshire, calls for laws to govern weapon in line with firearmsA woman who survived a terrifying crossbow attack in which her partner was killed has called for legislation governing these “lethal, medieval weapons” to be brought into line with firearms laws.Laura Sugden was 20 weeks pregnant when her neighbour, Anthony Lawrence, attacked her and her partner, Shane Gilmer, after he suspected they were getting him evicted. Continue reading...

Mayor of Morez in the Jura says find of five gold bars and 1,000 gold coins valued at €600,000 ‘has made us smile’The surprise discovery of three jam jars filled with gold bars and hundreds of gold coins in an old building marked for renovation has left a mountain community in eastern France perplexed and celebrating.The mayor of Morez, a small industrial town in a picturesque valley in the Jura, said the value of the find was more than €600,000 (£520,700). Town hall staff first found three jam jars of gold bars and coins worth €500,000 at the back of a dusty shelf, then opened a safe hidden behind boxes in a wardrobe to find up to €150,000 in gold coins. Continue reading...

Woman in her 30s was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender in connection with Everard’s deathA woman arrested in connection with the abduction and death of Sarah Everard has had her bail extended.Scotland Yard said a woman in her 30s who was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, had originally been released on bail to return to a police station on a date in mid-April. She has now been further bailed to return on a date in early June, the force said. Continue reading...

The Autocue is loaded up to see if Jeremy Paxman was right to dismiss the art of TV newsreadingThe words keep rising, white against a dark blue background, and I keep saying them, occasionally mispronouncing them. All the while I am conscious of the fact that somewhere behind the words there is a camera. Very soon I lose all sense of what I’m saying. I’m just reading on for dear life.In March, Jeremy Paxman dismissed the art of newsreading as “an occupation for an articulated suit”, claiming that “any fool” could read an Autocue. Last week, the BBC presenter Reeta Chakrabarti took him to task. “I’ve written a lot of what I’m reading out,” she told the Radio Times. “Those aren’t someone else’s words.” Continue reading...

Volunteer firefighter Luis Trueba found guilty of using petrol to start forest fire in Cantabria in 2019A volunteer firefighter who sought to “satisfy his ego” by using petrol to start a blaze that devoured 144 hectares of forest and scrubland in northern Spain has been given a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence and ordered to pay more than €158,000 (£137,000) in damages.Luis Trueba, the former head of the Civil Protection volunteer service in Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, had denied deliberately setting the fire in February 2019 so that he could help put it out, insisting instead that he had rushed to the scene “out of instinct”. Continue reading...

Pictures of pubs and haircuts as UK Covid restrictions eased highlight how our digital lives have changed

A group of high-profile activists including the media mogul Jimmy Lai have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 18 months for organising or attending 'unauthorised assemblies'.In the latest blow to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, Lai and the veteran activist Lee Cheuk Yan were each sentenced to 12 months in jail

UK’s release of details on Russian cyber-espionage ‘nothing more than an attempt to play along with’ USRussian diplomats have lashed out at the UK for joining the US in condemning Russia’s international cyber-espionage efforts, including elections interference and the SolarWinds hack.The UK ambassador to Russia, Deborah Bronnert, met Russian diplomatic officials at the foreign ministry in Moscow on Friday, hours after the Russian embassy in London called the UK’s release of details on hacking by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, as “nothing more than an attempt to play along with the USA”. Continue reading...

The jazz school dropout on her rise from professional Snapchatter to making claymation movies and country musicAllison Ponthier might only have one song in circulation, the high and lonesome Cowboy, but it already sounds like a modern classic. A Phoebe Bridgers-style confessional wrapped up in the country-pop polish of Kacey Musgraves, it tells the tale of this small-town Texan breaking free of her conservative bubble – Ponthier’s high school made 14-year-old students take abstinence pledges – in search of acceptance. “I was still in the closet, but felt like I wasn’t around people who did what I did, whether it was art or music or participating in queer culture,” explains Ponthier, who had long dreamed of moving to New York.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

Peacock served as foreign minister under Malcolm Fraser, but lost the 1984 and 1990 elections to Labor’s Bob HawkeFormer federal Liberal party leader Andrew Peacock has died in the United States aged 82.Peacock was the leader of the Liberal party for two stints in the 1980s and led the Australian conservatives to defeat at the 1984 and 1990 federal elections. He was previously the foreign minister from 1975 to 1980 under Malcolm Fraser. Continue reading...

Body language experts will aim to dissect estranged princes’ movements and the Queen will pay silent tribute to her husbandAll eyes will be on the sibling princes, not seen together since their frosty appearance at Westminster Abbey’s Commonwealth Day service more than a year ago, just before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex departed for good. Brought very close by the death of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, they are now separated by more than the Atlantic. It falls to cousin Peter Phillips to fill the physical and emotional gulf between the two as they walk apart behind their grandfather’s coffin. Continue reading...

Eighty-year-old Dennis has devoted his life to returning eagles, osprey, red kites and red squirrels to Britain. But, he says, there is still plenty to do. And he is thrilled by the can-do attitude he gets from young people todayAs he strolls beside Loch Garten in his fleece, binoculars around his neck, Roy Dennis looks every inch the spry, bird-loving grandad that he is. With his soft Hampshire burr and genial demeanour, it seems like he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. First impressions are deceptive, however. Dennis is the most significant conservationist you’ve probably never heard of, and possessed of a radicalism that would startle the most outspoken young environmentalist.The first hint emerges when Dennis, who is 80 and still climbs trees, remarks that no one over 60 should vote. He explains that older people are making decisions over the climate crisis and wildlife loss that they won’t be around to be accountable for; he recently decided voting should start at 12, the age of his youngest child, Phoebe, but she told him it should be 14. It is easy to say radical things, but Dennis’s vision of how to halt the extinction crisis and restore lost habitats and species in Britain deserves attention because it is rooted in 60 years of pioneering conservation action. Continue reading...

The author of the bestselling Southern Reach trilogy talks about taking notes on leaves, the adaptation of Annihilation and his new ecological thrillerIn Jeff VanderMeer’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander, the unnamed protagonist is presented in the opening pages with the key to a safety deposit box. Inside, she finds a taxidermied hummingbird and a note with just three words (and six dots) on it:Hummingbird...... Continue reading...

A young woman hits the road with the killer of her abusive husband in Ryūichi Hiroki’s adaptation of cult manga seriesThe prolific director Ryūichi Hiroki has carved out a niche in modern Japanese cinema with his willingness to delve into the darker sides of sexuality. Following a start in the softcore “pink” films, He has moved to the mainstream while exploring subjects such as sadomasochism. Ride or Die, a live-action adaptation of Ching Nakamura’s arresting but disquieting manga series Gunjō, fits perfectly in the director’s transgressive wheelhouse.The moods of Ride or Die alternate between neon-lit cityscapes and sun-drenched open roads. The opening is shockingly baptised in blood: Rei (Kiko Mizuhara), a twentysomething lesbian, has slashed a man to death in his own home. It is later revealed that her victim is the abusive husband of Nanae (Honami Sato), a high-school classmate for whom Rei has held a torch for a decade. In perhaps the most destructive possible declaration of love, Rei has killed for Nanae, and together they embark on a getaway that doubles as a journey to their past. The bloodshed carries a poetic power: the life of a (bad) man is taken, only for the two women to see themselves reborn. Continue reading...

A collective of projects across Iberia is protecting commercial signs to create a living archiveFire engine red, bordered by polka dots and stretching the length of three cars, the sign for the Orte clothing store had long loomed over Madrid’s Alcalá thoroughfare, its presence steady even as fast-food restaurants and chain stores began moving into the area.When the store closed its doors and the space was poised to be rented, news swiftly reached Alberto Nanclares. Within days he was on site, working with a team to painstakingly pry the sign from the facade where it had sat for more than five decades. Continue reading...

US publishing giant was due to distribute Jonathan Mattingly’s The Fight for Truth for rightwing outlet Post Hill Press

The prime minister says a 48-year-old NSW woman who died after receiving the Covid vaccine had ‘comorbidities and other issues’The prime minister, Scott Morrison, and Australia’s chief medical officer have warned people not to “jump to conclusions” and assume a 48-year-old woman who died with blood clots developed them due to the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.The woman, from Lake Macquarie on the state’s Central Coast, died on Wednesday after receiving the vaccine, reportedly last Friday. Continue reading...

‘Restaurants are back, back, back, so I booked breakfast to see off the misery of the past year’In the happy run-up to last Monday’s grand reopening of restaurants and pubs, a fleck of disquiet seeped into the shallower end of my brain. I have craved many things over these recent months of confinement – printed menus, petits fours, the chance to wear smoky eye kohl – but one thing I’d not missed was Fomo (that’s “fear of missing out”, should you not be up on modern acronyms). Fomo is the pernicious, all-consuming suspicion that other people elsewhere are having fun or, in my case as a restaurant critic, eating at better, more exclusive restaurants on nicer tables, which they booked ages ago. If I were to put a face on this hypothetical person, he would be a tall man with shaggy brown hair who plays jazz piano. Let’s call him Jay Rayner. OK, it is Jay Rayner, but, sometimes, it is other people.

PM says ‘first goal’ is to allow vaccinated Australians to travel and quarantine at home when they return. Follow updates live

Soul classics, German film soundtracks and chugging rap – here’s a workout of bangers to get you off the couch Continue reading...

New stations at health clinics improve hygiene in locations where warm water seen as ‘an absolute luxury’, helping to tackle CovidIn Eswatini, the southern African country which lost a prime minister to Covid-19 in December and where most people have no access to hot water, handwashing – a key weapon in the fight against the pandemic – has been a problem.No government health clinic in the kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland, had hot running water for patients. Nine out of 10 didn’t have hot water for operations and cleaning instruments. Continue reading...

On cars, restaurant walls and buildings reduced to rubble, Bashar al-Assad’s face is plastered across the country, a decade after he crushed the first protests against his rule. By photographer Rami al-Bustan Continue reading...

The relics – purported to be bones of saints – were found buried in rubble of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakesIt might seem like an inauspicious end for a saint, being laid to rest in a Greggs coffee jar.But for the holy relics buried beneath Christchurch’s destroyed Catholic cathedral, those repurposed containers have housed them safely through more than 40 years and two enormous earthquakes, until they were finally unearthed by demolition teams this week. Continue reading...

Thousands of Nepalese gathered to celebrate the Bisket Jatra festival in the town of Thimi, despite a government request for gatherings not to exceed 25 people. As part of the celebrations, coloured powder is spread to welcome the arrival of spring. Bisket Jatra began on Saturday and lasts for nine days Continue reading...

The duke was instrumental in getting the royals on screen, but his reduced funeral coverage will reflect how he came to regret the increasingly torrid exposure

The latest in our series of writers defending maligned movies is an ode to Jennifer Lopez’s sweet and surprisingly layered 00s romcomFull disclosure: part of the reason I wanted to write this piece was to give myself an excuse to watch The Wedding Planner again. Not that I need to – I’ve watched this movie so many times that I insert quotes from it into real-life conversations, the images of an immaculately coiffed and tucked-in Jennifer Lopez playing in my mind.Related: Hear me out: why Gentlemen Broncos isn’t a bad movie Continue reading...

Authorities act to counter rumours out-of-date shots are being used as people drag their heels over being vaccinated

School leaders warn tests would be unfair and the results ‘rendered useless’ by disruption caused by Covid

Proposals include making sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2004 illegalNew Zealand has announced a suite of proposals aimed at outlawing smoking for the next generation and moving the country closer to its goal of being smoke-free by 2025.The plans include the gradual increase of the legal smoking age, which could extend to a ban on the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products to anyone born after 2004, making smoking effectively illegal for that generation. Continue reading...

Dust blown in from drought-hit areas to the north sends pollution soaring to twice the hazardous levelThe third major sandstorm in five weeks turned Beijing’s skies sepia on Thursday, and sent air quality plummeting in the Chinese capital.The storms, caused by winds from drought-hit Mongolia and north-western China, sent levels of the pollutant PM10, which can penetrate the lung, to 999 micrograms per cubic metre – a level almost double the “hazardous” stage indicated by the Beijing air pollution real time quality index. Continue reading...

Pfizer CEO has also said it is ‘likely’ people will need a third coronavirus vaccine dose within a yearThe US is preparing for the possibility that a booster shot will be needed between nine and 12 months after people are initially vaccinated against Covid-19, a White House official said on Thursday. Continue reading...

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Friday: Experts suggest a Covid vaccine is unlikely to be to blame for the death of a NSW woman. Plus: how to live in harmony with bees in your backyardGood morning. It’s Friday 16 April and this is Imogen Dewey with the headlines. National consensus on raising the age of criminal responsibility is looking less and less likely, several government transactions are under scrutiny, and the coronavirus vaccine continues to dominate national conversation.Authorities are investigating the death of a 48-year-old diabetic NSW woman who developed blood clots after receiving a coronavirus vaccine – but experts suggest it would be unusual if the vaccine were responsible. Australians now eligible for a Covid vaccine have been frustrated at delays and lack of information. But doctors’ and nurses’ groups warn that the Coalition’s plans to set up mass vaccination clinics will put strain on the healthcare workforce, adding that there is little point opening them when questions remain about vaccine supply. Scott Morrison yesterday flagged allowing vaccinated Australians to travel overseas, and quarantine at home when they returned, but suggested that reopening international borders could lead to at least 1,000 Covid cases a week. Continue reading...

Seventy-seven cases of B.1.617, which has potentially worrying mutations, reported in England and Scotland