World news | The Guardian

Last year saw far fewer deaths at the San Francisco landmark, following a years-long movement to construct a barrierOver the past 20 years, roughly 30 confirmed suicides have been recorded at the Golden Gate bridge each year, or two or three each month. Last year, that number was down to eight.Officials credit a suicide prevention net installed around the structure more than a year ago. Continue reading...

Data to be permanently deleted on 13 February after matrix' was found to be unlawfulCampaigners say deletion of an unlawful database known as the matrix" will destroy vital evidence of discriminatory policing and prevent miscarriages of justice being exposed.The gangs violence matrix (GVM) operated by the Metropolitan police, which linked individuals to alleged gang membership, is being permanently deleted on 13 February after it was found to be unlawful in 2022. Continue reading...

Fault caused major problems with payments for two days and reportedly disrupted house movesBarclays says it has fixed the IT glitch that left thousands of customers locked out of their accounts on Friday and Saturday, and promised to compensate them for any losses incurred.The bank said customers could use its payment apps and online services, although some still faced a wait on Sunday to check updated balances and whether payments had been processed. Continue reading...

Spanish football federation's former president is accused of sexual assault and coercion over incident in 2023Spain's former football chief Luis Rubiales will go on trial in Madrid on Monday over the unsolicited kiss he planted on the World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso, a gesture that stunned millions of TV viewers and unleashed a backlash against sexism in sport.Rubiales, 47, is accused of sexual assault as well as coercion after allegations that he tried to force Hermoso, 34, into publicly declaring that the kiss, which occurred as she celebrated her team's victory in the 2023 World Cup in Australia, was consensual. Continue reading...

Go Back to Where You Came From has been criticised by charities for giving stage to extreme racist viewsThe producers behind a show about immigration have denied accusations it platforms racists, saying the voices you hear within the series are the voices we were hearing up and down the country as we were casting".Channel 4's immigration series Go Back to Where You Came From features six participants, some of whom hold anti-immigration views, following in the footsteps of refugees making the journey from Syria and Somalia to the UK. It has been referred to as Racists Across the World and criticised by Amnesty International and some charities. Continue reading...

Activists decry Cops TV-style content as deliberate strategy to desensitize' with calculated cruelty' on full blastJust days after being sworn in as Donald Trump's secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, well coiffed and clad in tactical gear, popped up in New York City before dawn with a message for Americans - and her boss, the US president.Live this AM from NYC. I'm on it," Noem wrote on X, the first in a series of social media posts documenting her ride-along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and officers from other federal agencies as they conducted a raid at a residential building in the Bronx on Tuesday. Hours later, in a piece-to-camera video, she declared the morning's mission a success: We are getting the dirtbags off the streets." Continue reading...

Silver W196 R Stromlinienwagen sold at Stuttgart auction for highest amount ever made by a grand prix carA streamlined Mercedes raced by the Formula One greats Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955 set a record for a grand prix car on Saturday, selling at auction for 51.15m (42.7m).The sleek, silver W196 R Stromlinienwagen, one of only four complete examples in existence, was sold by RM Sotheby's at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, on behalf of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). Continue reading...

Home secretary rules out return to full union with bloc as Keir Starmer prepares for talks in Brussels this weekKeir Starmer will seek to improve customs arrangements with Europe without returning to a full union with the bloc, the home secretary has said.As the prime minister heads to Brussels as part of his attempted reset with the EU, Yvette Cooper said it was still a red line that the UK would not be part of a customs union or single market. Continue reading...

Samuel Jarrett-Coker says Home Office has not responded to requests to resolve his immigration status since 1980sA Windrush man who has lived in the UK since he was a child fears he could be deported to his home country despite spending most of his life here.Samuel Jarrett-Coker, 61, fears that he is not only at risk of being deported but also made homeless because he says the Home Office never responded to his requests dating back to the 1980s to resolve his immigration status. Continue reading...

A 61-year-old man is suspected of killing Lamduan Armitage, whose body was found by walkers at Sell GillA man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of a Thai woman whose body was found in a stream in the Yorkshire Dales more than two decades ago.Lamduan Armitage, who would now be 55, became known as the Lady of the Hills when her then unidentified body was found by walkers at Sell Gill, on 20 September 2004. Continue reading...

Ukraine armed forces say 84 people were rescued or had medical help after strike in Russian territory that Kyiv holdsUkraine and Russia have traded blame for a deadly missile strike that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia's Kursk region held by Ukrainian forces.Some of the war's fiercest battles in recent months have been taking place in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine, where Kyiv forces have held swathes of the land since staging a major cross-border incursion last August. Continue reading...

Analysis of a mega poll shows Keir Starmer would lose more seats than Tories amid voter discontent with main partiesLabour faces losing scores of seats to Reform UK across England and Wales as a widening section of voters lose faith in the mainstream parties, according to a new analysis seen by the Observer.With senior figures in the Labour party now privately talking about a change of era" in which more moderate voters are turning to Nigel Farage's party, new research on Reform's influence suggests itwill take far more seats from Labour thanfrom the Conservatives on current trends. Continue reading...

Transport minister Jo Haylen admits I made the wrong decision' after ministerial car booked out for 13 hours for Hunter Valley lunch at winery

Sunday's stoppage to be worsened by engineering works, as dispute threatens to affect every weekend until JuneRail passengers face severe disruption on Sunday as Avanti West Coast train staff resume strike action that threatens to affect every weekend until June.The strikes, which were suspended for two weeks to allow for intensive talks" between unions and the intercity rail operator, will be compounded by planned engineering works by Network Rail. Continue reading...

Herbert River predicted to reach record levels as north Queensland seaside town of Rollingstone records 999mm of rain in 48 hours

Federal opposition leader also doubles down on claim his nuclear plan would cut power bills by 44% despite Coalition's own modelling being silent on issue

Research shows in tough times people often let home and contents insurance lapse, which could lead to dangerous decision to stay

Rebels had captured the city in January in major escalation of 10-year-old conflictAt least 773 people were killed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's largest city of Goma and its vicinity this week amid fighting with Rwanda-backed rebels who captured the city in a major escalation of a decade-long conflict, Congolese authorities have said.The rebels' advance into other areas was slowed by a weakened military that recovered some villages from them. Continue reading...

Essex police said a boy and a girl died at the scene and the car involved failed to stopTwo people have been arrested after two children died in a car collision in Essex, police have said.Officers were called to Walthams Place in Basildon at about 6.25pm on Saturday to reports of a crash and a car failing to stop. Continue reading...

Tens of thousands rally against government and in memory of railway station roof collapse that killed 15Serbia's powerful populist leader Aleksandar Vui was facing his biggest challenge yet as student-led demonstrations intensified at the weekend in what was being called the Balkan country's greatest ever protest movement.Three months to the day after a concrete canopy collapsed at the entrance of Novi Sad's railway station, tens of thousands of protesters converged on the northern city, blockading its three bridges in commemoration of the 15 people killed in the accident. The tragedy has been blamed squarely on government ineptitude and graft. Continue reading...

Judge condemns firm for use of customer's data after problem gambler was sent 1,300 emails over two years

Recruiting top graduates could stop other countries pulling ahead in artificial intelligence race, tech council says

Lord Foulkes believes rules must change after series of scandals involving Prince AndrewRules banning scrutiny of the royal family in parliament must be changed in light of the continuing scandals about Prince Andrew, a Labour peer has said. Lord Foulkes is seeking a meeting this week with the clerk of the parliaments Simon Burton, who is head of the House of Lords administration, to discuss what Foulkes says is a growing list of concerns about the activities of the royal family.Foulkes, a junior minister under Tony Blair, said he has been refused permission to table a question proposing a public register of royal interests. Continue reading...

Families have been informed of the incident, say Essex police, but no details of the deceased have been releasedFour people have died after a vehicle crashed into a building in Essex, police have said.Officers were called to Magdalen Street in Colchester at about 4.40am on Saturday to reports of a crash. Continue reading...

Last week Nigel Farage raised more than 1m at Oswald's - one of London's private members' clubs beloved of BrexitersIt's thirsty work bringing down the British establishment... and what better place to do it than a Mayfair gentlemen's club?Fortunately for Nigel Farage, there was plenty of Dom Perignon on hand last week as he tried to tempt billionaire outsiders to back Reform UK at a fundraiser at Oswald's, a private members' club next door to familiar names such as Boodles, Tiffany andCartier. Continue reading...

All six people onboard and one person on the ground are dead, with 19 others injured, says Philadelphia mayorSeven people were killed after a medical transport plane crashed into a north-east Philadelphia neighborhood on Friday.All six people on the flight and one person on the ground are dead. Nineteen others were injured, the Philadelphia mayor, Cherelle Parker, said. Continue reading...

Incident at Talbot Green police station in Rhondda Cynon Taf has led to arrest of a 27-year-old manSouth Wales police have appealed for calm after three officers were injured in a violent struggle" outside a police station.A 27-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault, arson and criminal damage after the incident at Talbot Green police station in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Continue reading...

Animal rights group suggested replacing the famous marmot with vegan cake to forecast the end of winterPennsylvania's governor, Josh Shapiro, is claws out in a dispute with animal rights organization Peta over Groundhog Day, pushing back against activists who suggested that the world-famous marmot Punxsutawney Phil should be replaced with a cake.Punxsutawney Phil headlines the yearly Groundhog Day festival in this small Pennsylvania town. The mythos surrounding this event maintains that this woodchuck can predict whether spring will start early, depending on whether he sees his shadow when exiting his nest. Continue reading...

Assault by the Rapid Support Forces in city of Omdurman also leaves more than 150 people woundedFighters with the opposition Rapid Support Forces have attacked an open market in the Sudanese city of Omdurman, killing 54 people.

Secretary of defense gave information about the military aircraft that collided with the passenger plane, killing 67Top US officials have said the military helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Wednesday was on a training mission for evacuating members of government in the event of a catastrophe or attack.The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told Fox News that the helicopter was performing a continuity of government" drill designed to help pilots rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario". Hegseth declined to go further, saying he didn't want to get into anything that's classified". Continue reading...

Meant to lend credibility to his nomination to head HHS, the letter is signed by some doctors disciplined for not following Covid guidelinesA letter submitted to the US Senate that states it was sent by physicians in support of Robert F Kennedy Jr's nomination as secretary of health and human services includes the names of doctors who have had their licenses revoked or suspended, or who have faced other disciplinary actions, the Associated Press has found.The letter was meant to lend credibility to Kennedy's nomination, which has faced strenuous opposition from medical experts due to his two decades of anti-vaccine activism. Republican senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor who boasts on his official website of an effort he created to vaccinate 36,000 children against hepatitis B, expressed hesitancy about Kennedy's nomination and is seen as a key vote. Continue reading...

James McMurdock, who did not publicly disclose before election his conviction 18 years ago, meets party vetting standardsA Reform MP who was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend 18 years ago will not be suspended and would pass the party's new vetting process, the party's deputy leader has said.Richard Tice has defended James McMurdock's assault on his ex-girlfriend as a mistake" and said his fellow MP was doing brilliantly". Continue reading...

Trump's pick to lead national intelligence has upset foreign policy hawks by not condemning the NSA whistleblowerA smooth path to the pinnacle of America's intelligence pyramid was never in the cards for Tulsi Gabbard.Dogged by a catalogue of eyebrow-raising past statements about Russia, Ukraine and Bashar al-Assad, accusations of parroting Kremlin talking points, and a lack of experience in intelligence (not even having sat on a relevant congressional committee), Gabbard was always a counterintuitive choice to sit atop the 18 US spy agencies and their roughly 70,000 employees. Continue reading...

Investigation first published by the Guardian proved volunteers at 2022 Black Lives Matter protest were unarmedThe chief of police in Portland, Oregon, acknowledged this week that the force had misled the public about a deadly attack on traffic-safety volunteers before a Black Lives Matter protest in 2022, by wrongly telling the media that the gunman had been confronted by armed protesters".In fact, as a visual investigation by the research group Forensic Architecture first published by the Guardian last year showed, the traffic-safety volunteers at the 19 February 2022 protest were unarmed, and trying to de-escalate the rightwing gunman when he opened fire. Continue reading...

Latest anti-immigration agenda pushes to strip in-state tuition rates from tens of thousands of college studentsIt was a week in which two of Ron DeSantis's flagship culture war crusades - education and immigration - collided. And it did not end well for Florida's hard-right Republican governor.Alongside a revolt by previously loyal lawmakers upset by DeSantis's power grab" in trying to write and impose immigration law, he also found himself under fire from tens of thousands of undocumented college and university students furious at his push to strip them of in-state tuition rates. Continue reading...

Mourners applaud while member of the Nolans pop group is carried in a pink coffin as sisters and celebrities pay tributeFans of the singer Linda Nolan have gathered as her funeral took place in Blackpool.People applauded as a hearse, carrying a pink glittery coffin lined with flowers, arrived at St Paul's church in the Lancashire town. Continue reading...

David Fisher of Westfield, Indiana, and son Felix rescued man who had fallen in after trying to rescue dogIn an extreme instance of life imitating art, an author of children's books about a rope-wielding hero reportedly used his jump ropes to save both a dog and a young man from drowning after they fell into an ice pond in Indiana.Those exploits in December by David Fisher - who also jumps rope professionally - recently earned him recognition as a hero from the municipal government of Westfield, as the Indiana television news station WRTV told it. Continue reading...

Guerrilla protest against low-traffic neighbourhood is latest backlash against newly-elected councilKatie Sullivan points to the middle of a busy junction in east Bristol where she sat for four hours in the cold last week to stop council contractors installing a bus gate. It was the third time local people had come out en masse to prevent the rollout of a livable neighbourhood" trial backed by the Green-led city council.We're furious the council is doing this to us," says Sullivan, who lives nearby. [The scheme] doesn't solve the problem [the council] wants it to solve... the imposition on people's lives is huge." Continue reading...

Artist's fascination with string is focus of show opening next week with works not seen beyond private collectionsFor more than 60 years, Barbara Hepworth's Winged Figure has loomed over London's Oxford Street, hanging off the side of its John Lewis store. Made of aluminium and incorporating slender rods, it is one of dozens of string" sculptures the Cornwall-based artist created during her five-decade career.Unlike Winged Figure, many of these works have never been publicly displayed. That is about to change as they go on show in a London gallery in the first ever dedicated exhibition on Thursday. Continue reading...

Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32 and originally from Hungary, were last seen on CCTV near harbour on 7 JanuaryThe body of a second woman has been found in the search for two missing sisters who went missing in Aberdeen last month.Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32 and originally from Hungary, were last seen on CCTV near the Dee at Aberdeen harbour early in the morning on 7 January, walking towards a path along the river. Continue reading...

Outage comes on HMRC's deadline day for settling self-assessment tax returns and a pay day for many workersA serious IT glitch has left some Barclays customers locked out of their accounts throughout the night and almost 24 hours on from the bank's initial outage.Barclays has apologised to customers and said it was currently facing intermittent errors" with its payment system. We're working to fix this as quickly as possible," it said. Continue reading...

Experts say it is inevitable government will let English local authorities exceed 5% cap if they are likely to go bustMinisters are under pressure to allow cash-strapped English local authorities to increase council tax by as much as 25% to prevent them becoming bankrupt.Experts said it was inevitable that the government would give the green light to some of the most financially constrained local authorities exceeding a 5% cap to prevent them from issuing section 114 notices that indicate they are rapidly going bust. Continue reading...

About two dozen Justice Department employees involved in Capitol riot cases sacked and demand issued for list of FBI officersThe Trump administration has fired a group of Justice Department prosecutors involved in the 6 January criminal cases and demanded the names of FBI agents involved in those same investigations so they can possibly be ousted.The jobs of about 24 employees at the US attorney's office in Washington were terminated late on Friday, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel issues. Continue reading...

New safety regulations have led SMEs to stop sales to bloc and Northern Ireland while they work out how to comply

Incident reveals Russia's maritime presence in the area is in a state of disrepair and disarray, argue western sourcesA fire onboard a Russian spy ship off the coast of Syria has underlined the poor state of the Russian navy as its toehold in the Mediterranean hangs in the balance, analysts and western security services say.The 55-year-old Kildin got into trouble off the Syrian coast last Thursday, when flames and thick black smoke could be seen billowing from its funnel and it hoisted two black balls up its mast, signifying that the crew no longer had control of the vessel. Continue reading...

Legal action has begun to remove the tenants after the 80-acre site was sold to be turned into a healing retreatLunch around the huge sycamore and oak table in the farmhouse kitchen of the off-grid Brithdir Mawr community in the Preseli mountains of west Wales is a warm, gentle affair.Members of the housing co-operative share soup made from leeks and potatoes grown in the gardens, served with crumbly goat's cheese from its own herd, all washed down with mugs of mountain spring water. Continue reading...

Townsville warned of very serious and dangerous event', with flooding likely to continue into middle of next week for state's north

Immigration minister says such conduct must be nipped in bud' as lawyer referred to office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner for consideration

The 37-year-old was charged after police allegedly found him using a marker to write on a wall in the city's eastern suburbs

Samoa's prime minister says US withdrawal from Paris climate agreement is very disappointing' and puts the survival of Pacific countries at greater riskLeaders and environmental advocates in the Pacific have expressed alarm over Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and freeze foreign aid, warning the moves will accelerate the existential threats they face as nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis.The Paris agreement is the world's main effort to address the impacts of the climate crisis. Trump has called it unfair" and a rip off". Continue reading...