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Austin Appelbee told authorities he was really scared' after swimming 4km in rough seas to get help for mum and two siblings

CBA shares surge by 7% after bumper $5.45bn result while data shows owner-occupiers' share of lending has decreased in tight property market

Mal Lanyon says police were required' to disperse crowd, while Mehreen Faruqi accused them of assaulting Muslims'

Lengthy delays in compensation are emblematic' of what many relatives of migrant workers go through in the Gulf kingdom, say rights groupsWhen Mohammad Arshad fell to his death while constructing the first new stadium for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, one of the main stadium contractors, the Belgian construction multinational Besix, promised it would take immediate steps to ensure all end-of-service and insurance payments were, handled in a timely and respectful manner".Almost a year later, Arshad's family say they have yet to receive either. Continue reading...

PM and global climate action advocate looks set to secure another victory despite voter concerns over cost of living and crimeBarbados prime minister and global climate action champion, Mia Amor Mottley, is on course for a third consecutive term in office, forecasts suggest, as voters head to the polls on Wednesday.Mottley is the country's first female leader since its independence in 1966, and her strong international advocacy for climate action and support for small and vulnerable nations have made her an influential and popular global and regional leader, experts say. Continue reading...

More than 25 people are injured, including two with life-threatening injuries, after shooting at secondary school and local residence

More than half of the cases presenting to the St Vincent's emergency department in Sydney had self-reported speeds of more than 25km/h

In Cardinham, which has had 366mm of rain this year, there's little need to check the weather forecast: more rain

Exclusive: Most people in charity's study say they worry about being separated from relatives under Mahmood plansFamilies of nurses and carers have said they fear being torn apart under an immigration crackdown condemned as an act of economic vandalism".A survey of more than 1,000 people, many of whom moved to Britain to work or study, found that three in five worry about being separated from their relatives. Continue reading...

Israeli president's visit met with protests outside Parliament House, with at least one independent MP boycotting question time

The 85-year-old magazine will return to the city for which it was named after a successful bid by Queensland University of Technology

Finding over abuse in Newcastle-Maitland diocese signals major shift in church's liability to victim survivorsThe high court has delivered a landmark win for survivors of clergy abuse, finding the Catholic church had a duty of care to protect a child from one of its paedophile priests.A man known only as AA sued the Catholic church's Newcastle and Maitland diocese over abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Ron Pickin in 1969, when he was aged just 13. Continue reading...

US, Britain, EU and Arab nations condemn plans that Israeli ministers say will kill the idea of a Palestinian state'Israeli measures to tighten its control of the West Bank have prompted a global backlash, including a signal from Washington restating the Trump administration's opposition to annexation of the occupied territory.Announcing the measures, which involve extending Israeli control in areas that are currently under Palestinian administration, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, made clear they were aimed at strengthening Israeli settlements in the West Bank and pre-empting the emergence of an independent sovereign Palestine. Continue reading...

Music publisher Primary Wave said to have bought rights to pop star's music, including Toxic and Baby One More TimeBritney Spears has sold the rights to her music catalog, which includes hits such as Toxic, Baby One More Time and Gimme More, according to media reports.The music publisher Primary Wave is said to have purchased the pop star's music rights on 30 December, TMZ reported on Tuesday, citing legal documents. An unnamed source familiar with the deal" confirmed the sale to the New York Times. Continue reading...

Police have been searching for Belgian tourist, 31, since she went missing near Cradle Mountain in June 2023

Community Security Trust, which provides security to British Jews, recorded total 3,700 incidents in 2025Antisemitic incidents increased sharply in the UK after the deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish year, according to an organisation that provides security to British Jews.Two people died and three were seriously injured at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation on 2 October last year, in the first fatal antisemitic terror attack since the Community Security Trust (CST) began recording incidents in 1984. Continue reading...

House of Commons business and trade committee calls for changes after series of scandals in sectorThe UK government needs to eradicate unsustainable" gaps in the policing of franchise businesses after a series of scandals to hit the sector, a parliamentary committee has found.The conclusion forms part of the business and trade committee's small business strategy report and follows a Guardian investigation in December which revealed claims that Adrian Howe, a former Vodafone employee who had agreed to become a franchisee in 2018, drowned after becoming convinced his deal with the multinational company would prove financially disastrous. Continue reading...

Special spaces are a key part of government's planned overhaul of special educational needs supportSecondary schools in England must provide specially designed areas for neurodiverse children and pupils with special educational needs, ministers have said.Universal inclusion bases" are spaces away from classrooms where children with additional needs can get support for some lessons. They are seen as a key part of government plans to overhaul special educational needs and disabilities (Send) support. Continue reading...

The 28 January raid of the Fulton county election office also came after a referral from a White House lawyerThe FBI's rationale behind raiding the Fulton county election office in Georgia last month was based on debunked claims from election deniers and came after a referral from a White House lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election, a search warrant affidavit unsealed on Tuesday reveals.The warrant offers the first insight for the basis for the FBI's 28 January raid on the Fulton county election office. FBI officials seized nearly 700 boxes of election materials in the raid. Continue reading...

They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again,' says Manhattan borough presidentThe Trump administration has removed a large pride flag from the Stonewall national monument in New York City, marking the latest move by the federal government to end diversity initiatives and sanitize the history shared in national parks.The monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The six days of protests against the police action were a key moment in sparking the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the site has since become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride. Continue reading...

Health secretary poised to make leadership bid after May local elections to pre-empt a potential challenge from rival Rayner, MPs close to him sayAllies of Wes Streeting expect him to try to depose Keir Starmer within weeks, despite the health secretary insisting he backs the prime minister and is not intending to move against him, the Guardian has been told.Starmer attempted to regain authority over his party on Tuesday after a tumultuous day in Westminster during which he was denounced by the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and lost his director of communications. Continue reading...

Labour peer Matthew Doyle has apologised for links to Sean Morton who was convicted of possession of indecent images of childrenKeir Starmer's longstanding communications chief has been suspended from the Labour whip in his new role in the Lords after it emerged that he had campaigned on behalf of a friend who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children.Matthew Doyle, who stepped down as the No 10 head of communications last March and was made a peer in December, said in a statement that he apologised for his links to Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Scotland who was convicted in 2018 of possessing the images. Continue reading...

Downing Street initially feared Scottish Labour leader's move was part of a wider leadership challengeDowning Street is increasingly confident that Anas Sarwar's call for Keir Starmer to stand down was not part of a coordinated plot by a leadership rival to bring down the prime minister, the Guardian understands.The Scottish Labour leader spoke to several cabinet ministers including Wes Streeting, as well as former deputy leader Angela Rayner, ahead of his explosive intervention on Monday, but sources said he had not revealed his plans. Continue reading...

Teenagers routinely see content promoting weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening creams, research findsChildren are being bombarded" with harmful products online, including weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening chemicals, a study has found.Research conducted for the children's commissioner for England found that teenagers were routinely exposed to harmful products on social media, video games and apps. Continue reading...

As he faces calls from lawmakers to resign, Lutnick testifies that he and his family visited disgraced financier in 2012The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had lunch with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the disgraced financier's private island, he said on Tuesday, as he faces mounting calls to resign from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation" in 2012, Lutnick said in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate appropriations committee. Continue reading...

Cold spell means cars can cross 20km stretch of frozen sea but drivers must be able to exit quickly in case of a problemTemperatures in northern Europe have been so low that citizens of Estonia can now drive across a 20km stretch of frozen sea linking the country's two main islands.The so-called ice road" connecting the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, located in western Estonia between the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga, was officially opened on Sunday with a line of cars waiting to use it that afternoon. Continue reading...

Trump earlier had ranted against bridge and also warned that China would terminate' hockey in CanadaMark Carney said he had held a positive" conversation with Donald Trump after the US leader threatened to block a new key bridge between their two countries, reminding the president that Canada paid for the structure - and that the US shares ownership.Late on Monday, Trump posted a lengthy message on social media, falsely claiming that the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, had virtually no US content". The bridge is due to open in early 2026. Continue reading...

An illuminating show at the Young V&A in London showcases the work of the world's leading stop-motion studioWhat would Wallace - everyone's favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor - look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker's coat? Would a huge set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana?Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London's Young V&A that showcases the work of the world's leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman studios. Early sketches for Nick Park's much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak. Continue reading...

Ex-congressman Tom Malinowski congratulates activist on hard-won victory' in special primary for US House seatIn an upset victory that may carry implications for Democrats nationwide, the progressive activist Analilia Mejia on Tuesday was on the verge of winning a special primary for a US House seat in New Jersey after her main challenger conceded defeat.Former congressman Tom Malinowski issued a statement congratulating Mejia, a former adviser to Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign and leader of New Jersey's Working Families Alliance who has narrowly been in the lead since last Thursday's election. Continue reading...

Ex-editor of Daily Mail tells high court he is appalled by allegations about its journalists by Stephen Lawrence's mother and othersPaul Dacre, the longtime editor of the Daily Mail, has said it was bitterly wounding" to face allegations that his journalists used criminal tactics to target the mother of a murdered teenager whose case he had championed.Giving evidence in the high court, Dacre, who edited the paper from 1992 to 2018, said the grave and sometimes preposterous" claims from Doreen Lawrence and six other claimants had astonished, appalled and - in the small hours of the night - reduced me to rage". Continue reading...

This blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this story hereJustice Choudhury KC is back from his deliberation and will make a decision about whether or not he will lift the reporting restriction shortly.Leo Ross's foster family is in court this morning to hear the judge pass his sentence, due this afternoon. Continue reading...

Key Labour figures have rallied around the prime minister amid speculation over his leadershipKemi Badenoch has said that Keir Starmer just received a stay of execution" yesterday. Speaking to reporters on a visit this morning, she said:[Starmer] is in a very dangerous place. The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the quiet bit out loud.Labour MPs and the Labour party have lost confidence in their leader, but the MPs are too scared of losing their jobs, so they're not going to call an election, and they've given him a stay of execution. The sad thing is that the country is suffering from not being governed at all. Continue reading...

Case is shrouded in fevered speculation about suicides, exceptional psychological instability' and criminal activity on the Bulgarian-Serbian borderIt has been dubbed Bulgaria's Twin Peaks": a grim saga involving the mysterious deaths of six people in the middle of the mountains that has gripped the eastern European country.Zahari Vaskov, the director of the national police general directorate, told a press conference on Monday that the deaths were a case without comparison in our country". Continue reading...

Twelve-year-old was stabbed to death by stranger when walking home from school in BirminghamA 15-year-old boy has been sentenced to at least 13 years in custody for the murder of Leo Ross, 12, in Birmingham last year.Leo was stabbed in the stomach as he made his way home from his school in Yardley Wood on 21 January 2025 and later died in hospital. Continue reading...

Wasserman has apologised for communicating with Ghislaine Maxwell after flirtatious emails they exchanged more than 20 years ago were revealedThe pop star Chappell Roan has announced she has left her talent agency after emails between its founder and Ghislaine Maxwell were featured in the Epstein files.The Grammy-winning artist shared a statement on social media announcing her departure from Wasserman, led by the sports and entertainment executive Casey Wasserman. Continue reading...

MEPs vote to allow people to be deported to places they have never been to, as NGOs express fears over new safe third countries' listThe EU has moved closer to creating offshore centres for migrants and asylum seekers, after centre-right and far-right MEPs united for tougher migration policies.MEPs voted for legal changes that will give authorities more options to deport asylum seekers, including sending people to countries they have never been to. Continue reading...

Labour leader appears to have weathered the storm but the coming weeks and months will bring more moments of peril

It is time for Europe to wake up ... If we do not decide for ourselves, we will be swept away,' the French president saidCuriously, US vice-president JD Vance - who dominated the headlines with his highly confrontational speech on Europe last year - is not attending the MSC this year.He spent the weekend in Italy attending the Olympic Games, visited Armenia yesterday and is in Azerbaijan today, but won't be coming back to Germany, it seems. Continue reading...

Anjlee Sangani signed off private investigator's confession of lawbreaking for Daily Mail publisher, which he now says was forgedA solicitor who approved a private investigator's contested confession of bugging, phone tapping and hacking on behalf of the publisher of the Daily Mail did not oversee the document being signed, the high court has heard.The most serious allegations of unlawful information-gathering against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) came from a signed statement made by the private investigator Gavin Burrows. Continue reading...

Single-engine plane made an emergency landing on a busy road, striking three vehicles and injuring two peopleA single-engine plane made an emergency landing on a busy road in Georgia, striking three vehicles and leaving two people with minor injuries, authorities said.The Hawker Beechcraft BE-36 landed Monday on Browns Bridge Road in Gainesville, about 50 miles (80km) north-east of Atlanta, due to reported engine issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and Gainesville police. Continue reading...

New website lists only limited number of medications - and many of them cost less in generic form elsewhereThe Trump administration has launched TrumpRx, but there are other sites offering discounts on more medications, and the new government site will appeal to a very limited group of patients, experts say.Trump has promised reforms on the unusually high drug prices in the US, and he called the announcement the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history" at a press conference on Thursday. Yet the site only lists 43 medications, more than half of which are available in generic form at significantly cheaper prices elsewhere. Continue reading...

Ian Claughton, 60, jailed after setting up crow scarers, stun guns and homemade flame-thrower to deter intrudersA drug dealer has been jailed for seven years after rigging a series of houses with Home Alone-style booby traps to deter intruders.Ian Claughton, 60, was found guilty of several drugs and firearms offences in November after standing trial at Doncaster crown court alongside his ex-wife Lesley Claughton, who was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years. Continue reading...

Seamus Culleton describes conditions as torture' as he pleads with taoiseach to raise his case with Donald TrumpAn Irish man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for five months despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record says he fears for his life and has appealed for help from Ireland's government.Seamus Culleton said conditions at his detention centre in Texas were akin to torture" and that the atmosphere was volatile. I'm not in fear of the other inmates. I'm afraid of the staff. They're capable of anything." Continue reading...

Head of army says potential peacemakers' being trained, in what would be first outside force in Gaza since 1967Indonesia has said it is preparing to send up to 8,000 troops to Gaza to be part of a peacekeeping force under Donald Trump's Middle East plan.The announcement by the army chief of staff, Gen Maruli Simanjuntak, makes Indonesia the first country to deliver a specific commitment to the international stabilisation force (ISF) envisaged as part of the second phase of the Trump plan. Continue reading...

CS Venkatakrishnan dismayed by depravity and corruption' revealed in Epstein files as he announces profits

Pressure mounts on oil and gas company as it aims for turnaround under new chief executive

Palestinian boy has been in the West Bank since 2022 but is still registered as a resident in the strip where ban appliesAn Israeli court has rejected an appeal to allow a five-year-old Palestinian boy with an aggressive form of cancer to enter Israel for life-saving treatment, citing a government policy that bars residents registered in Gaza from crossing the border, even when they no longer live there.In a ruling issued on Sunday, the Jerusalem district court dismissed a petition seeking permission to transfer the child from Ramallah to Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv for a bone marrow transplant - a procedure unavailable in either Gaza or the occupied West Bank. The boy has been in the West Bank since 2022 where he was receiving medical care unavailable in the Gaza Strip. His doctors have determined that he urgently requires antibody immunotherapy. Continue reading...

Teacher who ran school outside Paris was a formative influence on generations of comedians and actors including Helena Bonham Carter and Emma ThompsonMaster clown Philippe Gaulier, the influential founder of France's Ecole Philippe Gaulier, has died aged 82. Gaulier taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.Gaulier died on Monday due to complications from a lung infection. He had a stroke in 2023 and, since then, had received warm words of encouragement from all over the world", according to a statement made by his family. He seemed especially happy to receive letters and messages from his former students. Teaching was his passion and purpose in life." Continue reading...

Persistent wet weather is affecting farmers, builders, sports, wildlife - and damaging roads and homesFeel like it hasn't stopped raining?" the Met Office asked on Monday. For some places, the forecaster said, it really had rained every day so far this year.People who live in parts of Devon, Cornwall and Worcestershire have been dodging deluges or showers for 40 days - the same number of days that it rained in the Bible's Noah's ark story, the same number of soggy days you can expect if it rains on St Swithin's Day, according to folklore. Continue reading...

Scientists find underwater acoustic project to stop fish being sucked into cooling systems could save 44 tonnes a yearScientists have found that plans to use a fish disco" to deter migratory marine life from the nearby Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor could help save 90% of fish from the power plant's water intake pipes - but the solution is set to cost its developer 700m.EDF Energy, which is building the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, said research it commissioned from scientists at Swansea University had found that using an acoustic deterrent system helped to ward off the vast majority" of fish it tagged for the experiment. Continue reading...