World news | The Guardian

Ireland's deputy PM welcomes warmer relations as Keir Starmer arrives for official visit - but cautions UK cannot cherrypick' issuesThe UK cannot have an a la carte" reset of the Brexit agreement, Ireland's deputy prime minister has said, just hours before Keir Starmer headed to Dublin for his first official visit to Ireland.The tanaiste said the EU wanted an improved EU-UK relationship but that the UK could not cherrypick". Continue reading...

There will be joy over Labour's victory at the trades union congress this week - but also a determination to see that promises are keptTwelve months ago, when the TUC met for its annual bash in Liverpool as Labour stood on the brink of power, Keir Starmer's message to union leaders was eyes on the prize".Fresh from thrashing out the details of Labour's workers' rights package - the new deal for working people - in late-night talks, union leaders were upbeat. Continue reading...

Anastasia Trofimova's film Russians at War criticised for distorted picture of reality' in Ukraine after Venice premiereA new documentary portraying the lives of Russian soldiers near the Ukrainian frontlines has faced fierce criticism for attempting to whitewash Moscow's war crimes.Russians at War, directed by the Russian-Canadian film-maker Anastasia Trofimova, chronicles seven months spent embedded with a Russian army battalion in eastern Ukraine, presenting itself as a unique window into the daily lives of Russian soldiers. Continue reading...

Police appeal for information over disappearance of Khasha Smith, 35, who was last seen 11 months agoPolice have charged a 39-year-old man in connection with the death of an Edinburgh woman who went missing 11 months ago.Khasha Smith, a mother of three, from Calder, Edinburgh, was last seen on a FaceTime call with a friend on 10 October 2023, and was reported missing in January. Continue reading...

Singer speaks at Toronto film festival after announcing eye infection had left him with limited vision in one eyeSir Elton John has made his first public appearance at Toronto international film festival, days after announcing a severe eye infection had left him with limited vision in one eye.The British singer, 77, was pictured in good spirits as he arrived on the back of a buggy at the Canadian festival, alongside his husband, David Furnish. Continue reading...

Bureau of Meteorology says higher-than-average temperatures and moisture levels could spell more wild weather

British cosmetics tycoon Mike Jatania leads consortium to acquire UK's 113 outlets and outposts in Australia and North AmericaThe Body Shop has been rescued from administration by a consortium led by the British cosmetics tycoon Mike Jatania in a deal that will keep the ethical beauty brand's remaining 113 UK stores trading.Aurea, the growth capital firm founded by Jatania and former UBS, Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch executive Paul Raphael, said it had bought all the Body Shop International's assets, which include its UK stores and control of outposts in Australia and North America for an undisclosed sum. Continue reading...

Country music star's down to earth' range at Asda goes head to head with Kylie for the easy drinking' top spotWhether it's 9 to 5, Jolene or Islands in the Stream, Dolly Parton fans are no stranger to belting out her hits with a glass of wine in hand, but now they can sip her vino, too, as the singer's down to earth" wine range goes on sale in the UK.The brains behind Dolly Wines say they have bottled Parton's vivacious spirit and love for life" with the decision to branch out from selling albums to alcohol pitting the US country music star against the pop princess Kylie in the battle for the easy drinking" top spot. Continue reading...

Frontbenchers say they have had string of complaints from constituents and policy won't be worth the political hit'Cabinet ministers have grave concerns about Rachel Reeves's plan to axe the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners, the Guardian can reveal.Frontbenchers believe the government will have to announce extra support in the budget or even earlier to cushion the blow for some of the people worst affected by the cut. Continue reading...

Siberian kitten at No 10 may get frosty reception from chief mouser Larry, who took on George Osborne's cat, FreyaOn the face of it, the kitten that joined Keir Starmer's family appears to have had a peaceful first week at an address where feline and human rivals have been known to get their claws out.The arrival of the Siberian cat - as yet unnamed in public - was revealed on Monday by the prime minister, who said his children had been pushing for a dog to join them at Downing Street. Continue reading...

Survey of business decision-makers comes as TUC hits back at corporate lobbying against the proposals

Exclusive: Secondary' ticket platforms have thousands of tickets on sale, listed by seasoned touts or sneaker kids', based in the UK or overseasThe identities of greedy" touts who hoovered up tickets for the Oasis reunion tour can be revealed, amid widespread condemnation of fans being exploited by ticket resale platforms.Analysis by the Guardian reveals that secondary" ticketing platforms are advertising more than 4,500 tickets for all of the Gallagher brothers' long-awaited UK shows - in breach of rules for the gigs. Continue reading...

Owner of Ormiston Wire in London urges Keir Starmer not to forget small manufacturers in his dealings with EUThe head of a family-owned company that has made specialist wires and cables for six generations for clients ranging from naval vessels to film sets has blamed Brexit for shredding its business.Mark Ormiston, the owner of Ormiston Wire, said small businesses such as his had been flushed down the toilet" by the masterminds of Brexit who gave little thought to the real-life consequences for UK manufacturing. Continue reading...

Copilot recorded saying a lot of icing', indicating aircraft's de-icing system may have failed before August crash, according to investigatorsA preliminary report into the August crash of an airliner in Brazil has found signs of ice buildup on the plane but no definite cause for the accident.The report - made public on Friday - pointed out that icing detectors had been activated on airline Voepass's aircraft. And an official with the country's Centre for Research and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) told a press conference that cockpit recordings showed the co-pilot said there was a lot of icing" during the flight. Continue reading...

Quake near Liddell power station, one of the Coalition's seven proposed nuclear sites, felt in Sydney, Wollongong and Dubbo

Headmaster says alleged online incident occurred outside school hours and premises, and staff member has been sacked

Lesley Turner says July media release from shadow minister for Indigenous Australians injured his personal and professional reputation'

Ex-mafia associate Fotios Freddy' Geas convicted of fatally bludgeoning notorious Boston gangster in 2018A former mafia hitman already serving life in prison was sentenced to 25 years on Friday in the 2018 fatal prison bludgeoning of notorious Boston gangster James Whitey" Bulger.Prosecutors said Fotios Freddy" Geas used a lock attached to a belt to repeatedly hit the 89-year-old Bulger in the head hours after he arrived at Hazelton, a troubled US penitentiary, from another lockup in Florida in October 2018. Defense attorneys disputed that characterization on Friday, saying Geas hit Bulger with his fist. Continue reading...

Both creator and fan accounts on the platform grew 30% during strong year' in which its users spent more than 5bnThe owner of the subscription platform OnlyFans was paid a $472m (359m) dividend last year, taking his payouts from the business since 2020 to more than $1bn.Leonid Radvinsky has received a total of just under $1.3bn over the past four years from the site, which offers users subscriptions to material provided by creators and is synonymous with adult content. Continue reading...

Thomas Birley added fuel to bin fire and threw objects at police during unrest outside hotel housing asylum seekersA Rotherham man has been handed the longest prison sentence so far over the rioting in early August as he was jailed for nine years for his role in violence outside a hotel housing hundreds of asylum seekers.A judge told Thomas Birley, 27, that his case was unquestionably" one of the most serious of the dozens he had dealt with in the last month in relation to rioting outside the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers on 4 August. Continue reading...

Funds will help communities living on the Codrington estate, which was home to two sugar plantationsAn Anglican church group is to launch a 7m reconciliation project in Barbados to atone for the atrocities of transatlantic slavery and compensate descendants of enslaved people.United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG), a UK-based missionary organisation created in 1701 to convert people in the colonies to Christianity, will work with local and regional partners in the Caribbean to allocate money to education and entrepreneurial grants and historical research. It will also support land ownership among descendants of enslaved people. Continue reading...

Amazon says the device's pro-Harris answers were due to software errors, but conservatives allege a liberal biasAmazon's Alexa voice assistant has caused an uproar among conservatives after viral videos showed the device giving supportive answers about voting for Kamala Harris, while refusing to respond to similar questions about Donald Trump.The issue was due to a software update intended to improve the quality of Alexa's functions and its artificial intelligence operations, according to leaked documents obtained by the Washington Post. Continue reading...

Justice ministry had reportedly been considering sending criminals in England and Wales to Baltic stateMinisters have dismissed claims that Labour is considering sending criminals convicted in England and Wales to Estonia to serve their prison sentences.The Telegraph reported that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) was investigating all viable options" to increase capacity after the Baltic state said it had offered to rent out spare capacity to other countries. Continue reading...

Chris Harris says he warned BBC three months before crash that someone would die unless safety procedures changedThe former Top Gear presenter Chris Harris has said he expressed safety concerns to the BBC three months before the car crash that left Andrew Flintoff with facial injuries and broken ribs.The former England cricketer, 46, was driving an open-topped three-wheel vehicle when it flipped and slid along the track at Dunsfold aerodrome, Surrey, in December 2022. Continue reading...

Prime minister held a summit attended by National Crime Agency, Border Force and senior ministersKeir Starmer has pledged to break up people-smuggling gangs in the same manner used to apprehend and jail hundreds of rioters this summer.After a meeting with law enforcement agencies and cabinet ministers to discuss plans to stop small boats crossing the Channel on Friday, the prime minister said that the high-level summit" mirrored the approach taken after disturbances fuelled by far-right activists. Continue reading...

Several dead after blaze engulfs dormitory housing more than 150 children aged 10 to 14At least 18 boys have been killed and 27 more were taken to hospital after a fire raged through the dormitory of a boarding school in central Kenya in the early hours of Friday.Kenya's vice-president, Rigathi Gachagua, gave the toll at the scene at the Hillside Endarasha academy, a primary school in the town of Endarasha, where the fire broke out at about midnight engulfing rooms where more than 150 children were sleeping. Continue reading...

Witnesses say Ayenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was fired at by Israel Defense Forces soldiers positioned in nearby fieldAn American-Turkish dual national has been shot dead - reportedly by Israeli troops - while participating in a protest against settler expansion in the occupied West Bank.Ayenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old volunteer with the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, died in hospital on Friday after being shot in the head during a protest in Beita, near Nablus, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Continue reading...

Then education secretary faced repeated calls to resign over school and exam procedures during pandemicA former education secretary widely derided for his leadership of the department during the pandemic will face a grilling by the UK Covid-19 inquiry on the impact of school closures on children.Gavin Williamson, who faced repeated calls to resign over his handling of school closures, the cancellation of exams and a controversial U-turn on the grading of GCSE and A-level results, will be questioned about his two years in the job when the inquiry looks at the impact the pandemic had on children in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Continue reading...

Home Office has paid more than 430,000 extra compensation after watchdog investigations of complaintsThe Home Office has wrongly denied compensation to numerous Windrush victims, a watchdog report has found, concluding that further harm and injustice" has been caused as a result of systemic problems with the scheme.More than 430,000 of extra compensation has been awarded to people affected by the scandal as a result of investigations by the parliamentary and health service ombudsman. Continue reading...

Students say that Richard Aspinwall left his classroom after the shooting started to try protect themRichard Aspinwall, the mathematics teacher and football coach who was one of two teachers killed in Wednesday's high school shooting in Georgia, was trying to protect the children in his classroom when he was killed.His attempt to protect the teens in his care was one of the new details that have emerged about the four victims killed in the gun rampage by a student at Apalachee high school, in the small city of Winder. Continue reading...

Campaigners call for apology after inquiry report makes several criticisms of decisions made during Blair's tenureGrenfell campaigners have called on Tony Blair to apologise and take responsibility for decisions made by his government that contributed to the fire that killed 72 people.The former prime minister said on Thursday that tragedies such as the west London fire, which came after years of missed opportunities to regulate combustible cladding, were a result of unavoidable mistakes. Continue reading...

Disasters Emergency Committee sources say corporation fears backlash from those supportive of ground invasionThe launch of a major humanitarian appeal for Gaza by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is being delayed by the BBC, it has emerged.The corporation said the appeal did not meet all the established criteria for a national appeal, but the possibility of broadcasting an appeal was under review". Other channels have agreed to broadcast an appeal. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president says such use of long-range weapons would motivate Moscow to seek peaceVolodymyr Zelenskiy called upon the west on Friday to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles deep inside Russia and complained that a lack of supplies and cooperation prevented them being used effectively where they were permitted.The Ukrainian president flew to Germany to lobby western defence leaders amid growing concern in Kyiv that assistance from key allies - the US, UK and France - is deteriorating, as the war approaches a third winter. Continue reading...

People involved in some of the UK's highest-profile recent inquiries discuss what they achieved and what was left undoneAfter the final report of the Grenfell fire inquiry was published, Hisam Choucair, who lost six family members in the blaze, said: We did not ask for this inquiry ... It's delayed the justice my family deserves."Although he thanked the inquiry for its findings, Choucair was devastated that the police had put the criminal investigation on the back burner until it had concluded. A decision on prosecutions is now not expected to happen until the end of 2026 at the earliest. Continue reading...

Online fashion retailer writes to some customers to say they face 3.95 fee unless they keep up to 40 of order

Anas Al Mustafa, 43, sentenced to 10 years after seven people were hidden in a concealed space in his vanA people smuggler who was discovered after stowaways were heard screaming for help as they struggled for oxygen in a hidden compartment of his van has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.Anas Al Mustafa, 43, was convicted of assisting unlawful migration by trafficking seven people in February in a specially adapted van via a cross-Channel ferry between Dieppe in France and Newhaven. Continue reading...

German chancellor says country will support Ukraine for as long as it takes' as he meets Volodymyr ZelenskiyUkraine's defence minister outlined the country's priorities today.Speaking at Ramstein airbase, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised concerns about western partners' policies and the pace of deliveries.Long-range capability. I'm glad that the US, the UK, and France are represented here. Thanks to our joint courage, we have implemented very important operations, in particular in Crimea.These operations allowed us to return security to the Black Sea and our food exports. Now we hear that your long-range policy has not changed, but we see changes in the Atacms, Storm Shadows and Scalps -a shortage of missiles and cooperation. Continue reading...

Downing Street says plan to relocate prisoners from England and Wales was from previous Conservative administrationFormer chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick appeared on the media this morning, and said that recently visiting prisons for the first time he felt concerned about his own personal security.He told listeners of the BBC Today programme:I've been in a lot of prisons, what I've noticed in some I've visited recently is for the first time I've felt concerned for my own personal security - they're dangerous and frightening places, and staff are struggling to keep control.That will remove the immediate pressure, I don't think the government had any alternative in the short-term other than to do these releases.But it's a bit like squeezing a balloon - you release the pressure in one place but the bulge goes somewhere else - and the real problem now is, first of all, some of those released will re-offend for certain, and some of those released, a lot of those released, I fear will end up homeless because there simply isn't the accommodation for them. Continue reading...

Dominique Pelicot has admitted drugging his wife Gisele and inviting strangers to abuse her over a decadeThe daughter of a French man on trial for enlisting strangers to rape his drugged wife has described him as probably one of the worst sexual criminals in past 20 years".Dominique Pelicot, a 71-year-old retiree, has admitted to abusing his wife without her knowledge between 2011 and 2020, drugging her with sleeping pills and then recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her in her own home. Continue reading...

Little-known Si Advisers to acquire more than 40 Ivy Collection restaurants, according to report

Exclusive: Napo says officers do not feel protected as 2,000 offenders to be let out early to try to ease prison crisisProbation officers have been given as little as a week's notice to prepare for serious offenders to be freed in England and Wales under the government's early-release scheme, the Guardian has been told.About 2,000 prisoners are expected to be let out on Tuesday 10 September amid warnings of a coming spike in crime. But members of the probation officers' union Napo were only informed on 3 September that this would include some serious offenders being released into their supervision. Continue reading...

Public choosing Shakespeare over invasion' and becoming more discerning about Britain's history, says Alan LesterA striking fall in pride in Britain's history, but widespread support for the arts, shows the public are choosing Shakespeare over invasion, exploitation and occupation", a leading historian has said.The findings from the British Social Attitudes survey, published this week, show that while levels of pride in Britain's achievements in sport and the arts remained high over the past decade, there was a 22-point fall in the proportion of people saying they were proud of Britain's history. Continue reading...

Plans for brutalist Richard Dunn building would turn it into versatile space for recently added Olympic sportsAn abandoned sports centre that escaped demolition after being turned into a backup Covid morgue could be in line for a new role as the UK's first national skateboarding park.Andy McDonald, a skateboarder who was called Rad Dad" after competing in the Paris Olympics at the age of 51, is among those backing the proposals to reinvent Bradford's boarded-up brutalist Richard Dunn sports centre. Continue reading...

Fadi Aldeeb, who had a month to train in his old event, was sole Gaza-born athlete at either Paris GamesFadi Aldeeb got the call just a month before the Paralympics began asking him to return to the shot put, an event in which he hadn't competed in years, to be the sole Palestinian representative at the Paris Games.When they asked me, of course I said yes because this is my country," said the 38-year-old wheelchair basketball player from Gaza. This experience isn't about me, I am the voice of millions of people, to show their goals, their hopes and their successes. This is my opportunity to show the world who we are." Continue reading...

Pensioners in Copley, which has 53 days of snow a year on average, say plan to limit help will be a big loss'

Decision affects services such as Citymapper, while TfL says incident not believed to be ransomware attackTransport for London has cut some live data feeds serving travel apps such as Citymapper and TfL Go, as it deals with the cyber-attack that began last Sunday.TfL said that while public transport services were running as normal and not directly affected, it was restricting access to live travel data and some other customer services including journey history and photocard registration as part of measures to tackle the breach. Continue reading...

Co-founder of British cybersecurity company says now is the right time to hand over the reins', to Jill PopelkaPoppy Gustafsson, the co-founder and chief executive of the British cybersecurity firm Darktrace, is to leave the company after its $5.3bn (4.2bn) sale to the US private equity business Thoma Bravo.Gustafsson, one of the most well-known figures in the UK tech industry, founded Darktrace in Cambridge in 2013 with backing from the late billionaire Mike Lynch's Invoke Capital. Continue reading...

Designer rolls out signature styles and western-inspired pieces for show opening New York fashion weekAs a broke sales assistant in his early 20s, Ralph Lauren would drive to the eastern end of Long Island just to breathe the affluent air. The son of Jewish immigrants grew up in the Bronx and now has a net worth of $7bn (5.3bn). For many, his story is the epitome of the American dream.So it felt fitting that Thursday night's show of his latest collection, which kicked off New York fashion week, stuck to the classics, including Lauren's polo player logo which has become the symbol of American style. Continue reading...

Average cost of property rose 0.3% to 292,505 in August, says Halifax, after largely positive summer'

Fringe festival for leftwing politics will not take place at party's conference in Liverpool for first time since 2016Senior leftwing Labour figures have said the left will have a greatly diminished presence at this year's party conference, where the Jeremy Corbyn-era fringe festival will not take place for the first time since 2016.The conference in Liverpool is likely to be dominated by delegates from the party's centrist wing, though there will be moves to force votes on issues such as the two-child benefit cap and the winter fuel allowance. Continue reading...