World news | The Guardian

First day of snowfall this season is heaviest on record, says weather bureauSouth Korea's capital has been blanketed by what the weather agency said was the heaviest November snowfall since records began over a century ago. It was the first snowfall of this year's winter.The Korea Meteorological Administration said 16.5cm (6.5 inches) of snow fell by 7am on Wednesday, compared with Seoul's previous record of 12.4cm on 28 November 1972. It was the heaviest snowfall since records began in 1907, the KMA said. Continue reading...

A growing number feel single parenthood is liberating and only a sense of shame' around it is holding women backIt was Covid that gave Amy, 45, the final push to have fertility treatment on her own. I had been thinking about it for a while, and then with Covid, I thought: I'm never gonna meet anybody.' And I didn't really want to be that woman who's like: Hey, we've been on one internet date. Let's have a baby!"Amy struck lucky with her first embryo transfer and is now the mother of a three-year-old. I feel very blessed," she said. Continue reading...

Laila Soueif is to meet the foreign secretary, who in opposition called for the release of Alaa Abd el-FattahThe British-born mother of an Egyptian political prisoner who has been on hunger strike for 58 days is preparing to meet the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to urge him to secure her son's release.Laila Soueif's son Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British and Egyptian dual citizen who wrote eloquently about the Arab spring and its aftermath, was jailed for five years for spreading false news". He was due to be released in September, but has not been freed. Continue reading...

Director showcases images of the suffragettes, Kinder Scout trespasses and anti-fascist protests in LondonAfter retelling the story of the Blitz from a new angle, Steve McQueen's next project is an alternative photographic history of protest and campaigning in Britain, spanning a century from the suffragettes to the Iraq war protests.Resistance will open at Margate's Turner Contemporary in February 2025, which the gallery's director said would show how photography has really acted as a kind of catalyst for change" in the UK. Continue reading...

Penrith in city's west reached 39.9C on Wednesday as premier called on residents to cut back on power usage between 3pm and 8pm

Lawyers for the disgraced movie mogul prepare lawsuit accusing Rikers Island jail of negligence and failing to provide adequate medical treatmentHarvey Weinstein's lawyers have filed a legal claim against New York City alleging he is receiving substandard medical treatment in unhygienic conditions while in custody at the Rikers Island jail complex.The notice of claim - the first step in filing a lawsuit against the city - accuses the facility of failing to manage the former movie mogul's medical conditions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes, and negligence ranging from freezing" conditions to a lack of clean clothes. Continue reading...

Policy costs surging for many households, committee report finds, especially those facing the brunt of climate-driven disasters'

Wildlife group claims win as environment department says granting licence for bird was an error'

Swapo party could lose its majority for the first time since independence in 1990, if youth voter turnout is highNamibians are going to the polls with the longtime ruling party's parliamentary majority under threat if dissatisfied young people turn out in big numbers amid a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment globally.The Swapo party could also be forced to contest a second round in the presidential election for the first time since the sparsely populated southern African country became independent from South Africa in 1990. Continue reading...

Prior to Wednesday's figues, both headline and underlying inflation had retreated for five consecutive months

National Audit Office finds significant uncertainty' as to whether pledge for extra 1.5m treatments will be fulfilledPlans to end the deepening crisis in access to NHS dental care are failing, leaving patients unable to get treatment, according to a warning from the government's spending watchdog.The National Audit Office's (NAO) damning verdict on the dental recovery plan" prompted patient groups to voice alarm that people's struggles with decayed teeth represents a serious public health concern". Continue reading...

Stellantis says it will shift production from Bedfordshire to plant at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire

Exclusive: James McGovern and Thomas Massie warn US president they are deeply concerned' the WikiLeaks founder's plea deal sets worrying precedent

Members' venue in central London popular with the media and arts world closes as police inquiry explores recent crimeThe Groucho Club has been forced to close as police investigate whether the venue was the scene of a serious criminal offence.On Tuesday Westminster council ruled that the licence of the club, which counts many A-list celebrities among its members, should be immediately suspended for 28 days. A full hearing will then take place. Continue reading...

Senior Brazil military figures backed plot to seize power after Bolsonaro's election defeat, federal documents allegeBrazil came within a whisker of a far-right military coup and the assassination of a supreme court judge just days before President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took power in January 2023, a federal police report has claimed.The report about the alleged plot to help the rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro cling to power was made public on Tuesday, and paints a chilling portrait of how close one of the world's largest democracies came to being plunged back into authoritarian rule. Continue reading...

Kiena Dawes left note saying she was murdered' by Ryan Wellings, who is standing trial for her manslaughterA young mother killed herself and left a note saying I was murdered" after suffering years of abuse at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, a court has heard.Kiena Dawes, 23, a hairdresser, said in her note that Ryan Wellings killed me", a jury heard. Continue reading...

Child was found severely malnourished, unable to walk or speak and had never seen daylight before her rescueThe mother of a three-year-old girl who was kept in a drawer and had never seen daylight or another human face has been jailed for more than seven years.The girl was found severely malnourished and unable to walk or speak in February 2023 by a partner of her mother's who had gone upstairs to use the toilet and heard a noise that sounded like a baby. Continue reading...

Kremlin bans UK cabinet ministers including Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Yveette Cooper from entering countryThe Federation of Small Businesses applauds the ambition in the government's Get Britain Working, but says that overcoming the pervasive poverty of ambition" about employment in the public sector won't be easy. This is from Tina McKenzie, the FSB's policy chair.This is a start - but only a start - in fixing the pervasive poverty of ambition in the Jobcentre, health and other state systems when it comes to getting people back into work. Increasing employment is ultimately the most sure-fire way to drive up living standards and economic growth.

City of London Corporation rejects plan for new Dagenham site and will offer traders about 300m in compensationLondon's historic Smithfield meat market is to close for good after the City of London Corporation voted to pull out of plans to relocate it and Billingsgate fish market to Dagenham.The corporation, which owns and operates the central London site of the centuries-old market, had earlier this month put on hold relocation plans to a new 1bn site in Dagenham, east London, to review the financial sustainability" of the planned move. Continue reading...

Leanne Lucas, who was seriously injured trying to protect children, says she plans to speak out more after trialA dance teacher who survived the knife attack in Southport where three children were killed has said she is hoping her voice will get louder and louder" after the trial of her alleged attacker.Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Bebe King, six, were killed in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July, and 10 other people were injured, eight of them children. Continue reading...

Most claims from 400 men on vessel moored in Portland, Dorset have been processed, with majority acceptedThe final asylum seekers housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge left the boat on Tuesday and crew members are set to leave on Wednesday, with the controversial vessel's final day in port expected to be 8 January.The accommodation on the barge, moored in Portland, Dorset, will now be dismantled after the Labour government decided to discontinue the previous government's contract to house asylum seekers on the vessel. Continue reading...

Fine Gael had looked sure of victory on Friday before Simon Harris's disastrous interaction with care workerIreland's three main parties are almost neck and neck in the polls ahead of Friday's general election, as the taoiseach, Simon Harris, struggles to contain the damage inflicted on his campaign by a disastrous interaction with an angry care worker.In what has been called the Simon slump", Fine Gael, the centre-right party which Harris leads, and which seemed almost certain to top the polls, is now under pressure. An Irish Times poll on Monday showed FG had lost its commanding lead of two weeks ago and was down six points. Continue reading...

Five more rescued and seven still missing from the Sea Story, which was carrying 30 tourists and 14 crewEgyptian naval forces have rescued five people and recovered four bodies from the Red Sea a day after a large tourist boat sank in rough waters, officials said, but seven people remain missing.The Red Sea governor, Amr Hanafi, said the yacht, called Sea Story, had been struck by high waves on Monday and sank in less than seven minutes. Continue reading...

Campaigners will apply for emergency injunction to stop exports of F-35 parts used in extermination campaign'

National security adviser will travel to Washington in attempt to persuade US president-elect not to rip up deal

Data shows a threefold increase in internal displacement across the African continent since 2009, with flooding and drought posing a growing threatWars and climate disasters have driven a threefold increase in the number of internally displaced people in Africa over the past 15 years, according to new data.There are now 35 million people internally displaced on the continent, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), compared with 11.6 million in 2009, when African governments signed a landmark deal legally binding them to tackle the causes of displacement. Continue reading...

Trader was able to record more than 400 fictitious trades over a period of 20 months, says watchdog

National Audit Office disclaims' accounts because of shortcomings in auditing of English local authoritiesThe government's entire public sector financial accounts are not fit for purpose, the official audit watchdog has said after the collapse of the red flag" system that scrutinises billions of pounds of spending in local government.The National Audit Office (NAO) said it was impossible to sign off the government's latest public spending figures as accurate because of the unreliability of financial data relating to hundreds of councils and police and fire authorities. Continue reading...

Advocates against death penalty note president has spared no one from death row but it's not too late to cement legacy'Advocates against the death penalty took aim with blistering irony at Joe Biden for pardoning two more Thanksgiving turkeys on Monday - reaching a total of eight fowl reprieved during his presidency - while he has failed to use his powers to grant clemency to anyone on federal death row awaiting execution.Biden's days left in office are limited, but it's not too late for him to spare everyone from federal death row (and cement his legacy for the better)," the Prison Policy Initiative, a group campaigning to end mass incarceration, said in a post on Instagram. Continue reading...

Cycling and motoring retailer calls for more support for business from the government

In today's newsletter: A police visit to a Daily Telegraph columnist about a tweet unleashed a barrage of coverage - but the story is more complicated than it appears Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. A journalist visited by police over an erroneous tweet. A barber accused of racism over a dodgy haircut. And someone in Warwickshire reported for refusing to shake hands. These are some of the examples cited in recent days in an escalating media storm over non-crime hate incidents" recorded by police.The problem, frequently laid at the door of the woke mob, is so catastrophically vexing that former Conservative MEP and Daily Telegraph columnist Daniel Hannan declared it evidence of the bleak reality of our DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] police state". Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has now said that the police should apply a common sense and consistent approach", an apparent nod to the criticisms of how the system works. And there are some reasonable objections to the status quo. But there are also important reasons for its existence that have very little to do with haircuts or handshakes.Unemployment | Teenagers will get training at the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4 in a government drive to get hundreds of thousands into jobs or education. The scheme is part of a suite of changes to the welfare system and out-of-work support being announced today.US politics | Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% US tariff on products from Mexico and Canada. He said the tariffs would only be lifted if Mexico and Canada clamp down on migrants and illegal drugs crossing the border, and promised an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports.Storm Bert | Forecasters, environment officials and politicians have been criticised over the warnings issued before Storm Bert and the fitness of flood defences to cope with increasingly common extreme weather. The Met Office defended its work, saying that the storm was well forecast, 48 hours in advance".Regulation | Britain's financial sector watchdog is incompetent at best, dishonest at worst", according to a damning report by MPs and Lords which called for a big shake-up. An examination of the Financial Conduct Authority found very significant shortcomings" after a series of financial scandals.Health | Weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of worsening kidney function, kidney failure and dying from kidney disease by a fifth, according to a study. Compared with placebo, GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic reduced the risk of kidney failure by 16% and the worsening of kidney function by 22%,Victim-led hate reporting has had significant and important positive impacts for police, and communities, in diagnosing harm, extremism, and failing integration or community-cohesion efforts ... We all know that recording rules can be complex, but they should not be a concern to a victim at their time of distress." Continue reading...

Labor says Peter Dutton's talk of slashing and burning numbers if elected would cost billions and lead to longer wait times and reduced quality

Money to be used to fund education and treatment of gambling harms in plans to be unveiled as soon as this weekCasinos and bookmakers in Great Britain will be forced to pay a 100m-a-year levy to fund research, education and treatment of gambling harms, under government plans to be announced as soon as this week.Labour is understood to be poised to rubber-stamp the previous government's proposal to do away with a voluntary system that allows industry operators to choose how much to donate to tackle damage caused by gambling and which organisations should receive the money. Continue reading...

MyGov, ATO and Centrelink systems enable perpetrators to financially abuse survivors long after they leave violent relationships, campaigners say

Damage to fictional gravesite, seen in 1984 adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, discovered on SundayMarley was dead: to begin with," begins Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the ghostly morality tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge who, through a series of encounters with spirits in the early hours of Christmas morning, realises he needs to change his ways.It is an imagined story - there is no Scrooge and, unlike his unfortunate business partner, he is not dead. But that does not appear to have mattered to a vandal in Shropshire, where a gravestone of Scrooge used in a 1984 film adaptation has been smashed into multiple pieces. Continue reading...

Tory leader says she will not comment on every bit of micro-policy'Q: Are you feeling the pressure? There is a petition signed by 2 million people calling for another election.Starmer says he is not surprised that people who did not support Labour in the first place want the election to be re-run. But that is not how the system worked.I'm not surprised, quite frankly, that as we're doing the tough stuff, there are plenty of people who say, Well, I'm impacted.'I think anybody who's turned around an organisation or a business will tell you, and they're right, if you're really going to turn something around, you have to do the hard yards upfront. Don't look at a tough decision and then leave it for a year or two.So we're doing the tough stuff. But in the budget, which is probably the toughest, I'm really pleased that we were able to put so much money into the National Health Service ... Anybody watching this who uses the NHS will know we absolutely had to make that a priority. Continue reading...

Group had their New York debut in 1991 and will play their last show in the city in FebruaryThe Blue Man Group will conclude its off-Broadway New York run in February 2025 after playing 17,000 plus performances over more than 30 years.The group is known for its iconic blue-faced, bright-eyed bald humanoids that perform a myriad of stage antics, such as paint-splattering, drum-playing, and marshmallow-catching. They are set to play their final performance on 2 February. Continue reading...

Casualties include 14 people who have been sent to hospitalJon Henley is the Guardian's Europe correspondentAn ultranationalist, Moscow-friendly Nato critic is set to face a centre-right candidate in the runoff of Romania's presidential elections after a shock first-round result that has upended the country's politics and could jeopardise its support for Ukraine. Continue reading...

Next May's presidential vote is in effect a referendum on whether Donald Tusk's government can rule freelyDonald Tusk's government in Poland is gearing up for a crucial presidential election next year, after a first year in office that has been marked by clashes with the current president, Andrzej Duda, as well as splits within the ruling coalition.Tusk took office as prime minister last December, ending eight years of rule by the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party. The change of government prompted celebrations from progressive Poles and relief in Brussels, where PiS had put Poland on a course of conflict with European bodies. Continue reading...

No illnesses traced to batch as health officials warn consumers to avoid purchaseBird flu has been detected in a sample of raw milk sold in California raising fears about the continued spread of the virus, state officials reported.The virus was found in one batch of cream top, whole raw milk" from Raw Farm, a dairy farm based out of Fresno, California, with a best by" date of 27 November, said the California department of public health in a press release. Continue reading...

Bank's shares rise as it disputes FCA finding it should have disclosed more about deal during financial crisis

The Guardian's Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss how Rachel Reeves's budget has upset businesses, as the annual CBI conference takes place. Plus, what is the government's plan for the welfare state and getting Britain back to work'? Continue reading...

Proposal would give councils option to charge 75p-1.25 a night to help alleviate pressure on local servicesPeople who stay in Wales overnight, including children, are set to be charged a visitor levy under a scheme that could raise up to 33m a year to be ploughed back into tourism and culture.All visitors would be charged 75p a night to stay in campsites and hostels and 1.25 for all other accommodation including hotels, B&Bs and holiday lets. Continue reading...

The award will be the biggest of its kind in Europe and aims to celebrate the work of an overlooked and underpaid profession facing an existential threat from AINorway is launching a new translation price that is one of the most highly endowed of its kind in Europe, in an attempt to boost a partly invisible" and often poorly paid profession increasingly under threat from machine translation.Named after the Norwegian novelist and playwright who won the 2023 Nobel prize in literature, Jon Fosse, the Fosse prize for translators will reward one author every year with 500,000 NOK (36,000) for making a particularly significant contribution to translating Norwegian literature into another language". Continue reading...

Clin Georgescu, a critic of Nato, says people have cried out for peace' after he heads into runoff with 22.9% of voteAn ultranationalist, Moscow-friendly Nato critic is set to face a centre-right candidate in the runoff of Romania's presidential elections after a shock first-round result that has upended the country's politics and could jeopardise its support for Ukraine.With 99.98% of votes counted, Clin Georgescu, an independent who has praised Vladimir Putin as a man who loves his country", was on 22.9%, with the reformist Elena Lasconi, of the Save Romania Union (USR), second on 19.17%. Continue reading...

Experts point to increased risk of criminal and sexual exploitation and call for urgent action from governmentThe crisis in special needs education has left children vulnerable to criminal and sexual exploitation, experts have warned, as parents of victims described years of failed attempts to get support.Last year, 7,432 children were referred to the national referral mechanism - the framework for identifying potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery in England and Wales. Continue reading...

Critics claim warnings and defences were inadequate but Met Office says storm was well forecast'

Government shuts down internet, blocks highways and brings in troops to stop protest by former PM's supportersPakistan's capital was put under lockdown as the government shut down the internet, blocked highways and brought in thousands of police and paramilitaries in an attempt to prevent supporters of the former prime minister Imran Khan protesting in Islamabad.Khan, who has been in jail for more than a year facing hundreds of charges, had issued a final call" for his supporters to descend on Islamabad to demand his release and protest against recent changes to the judiciary and constitution. Continue reading...

Exclusive: All-party parliamentary group on fair elections argues proportional voting system would help restore trustKeir Starmer is under renewed pressure over electoral reform after dozens of newly elected Labour MPs signed up to a parliamentary group calling for the UK to move to a proportional voting system.More than half of the nearly 100 MPs who have joined the new all-party parliamentary group on fair elections are from Labour, with 43 from the intake elected in 2024. The group, formed in September, says it is growing all the time. Continue reading...

Heavy attack launched in wake of deadly strikes on Beirut, and comes as talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal have stalledHezbollah has fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said, wounding seven people in one of the militant group's heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut while negotiators pressed on with ceasefire efforts to halt the all-out war.Some of the rockets fired on Sunday reached the Tel Aviv area in the heart of Israel. Continue reading...