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Ahead of UK-US bilateral talks, PM says primary driver for cutting peers' retirement age is size of Lords chamber

Brexit supporter calls for new chancellor to rectify tax inequality' in hospitality industryTim Martin, the politically outspoken boss of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain, has praised the new Labour chancellor's economic pedigree", as he called for tax changes to help the struggling hospitality sector.Martin regularly publishes economic and political commentary alongside his company's results and has previously voiced support for Brexit and Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

Kyiv says it downed 14 of 20 drones launched by Russia, but strikes kill two in Odesa and hit energy supplies in RivneKatarina Mathernova, the European Union's ambassador to Kyiv, has posted pictures of a group of ambassadors visiting the site of the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in central Kyiv.She described the attack on the building earlier this week as the latest Russian terror and destruction" and described it as gut-wrenching". Continue reading...

Bible-bashing drug boss accused of targeting Afro-Brazilian religions and Catholic congregationsReports that a powerful Rio drug lord known for his extremist religious beliefs ordered Catholic churches near his stronghold to close have spooked worshipers and security experts and exposed the advent of a narco-pentecostal" movement made up of heavily armed evangelical drug traffickers.Claims emerged in the Brazilian press over the weekend that Alvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa - a notorious gang boss known as Peixao (Big Fish) - had determined that three places of worship should shut down in and around the agglomeration of favelas that he controls in northern Rio. Continue reading...

Karamba Diaby's announcement he wants to spend time with family comes after bullet and arson attacks on his officeThe first black African-born MP to enter the German parliament has announced he will not be standing in next year's federal election, weeks after he revealed the hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received.Karamba Diaby, 62, who entered the Bundestag in 2013 in a moment hailed as historic by equality campaigners, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and to make room for younger politicians. Continue reading...

Customers left out of pocket who placed orders have now become, in effect, unsecured creditors

Shadow home secretary calls for unity in opposition, after comments from Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch

About 180 firefighters battled the blaze given a seventh alarm' rating. Follow the day's news live

Humanitarian worker was among seven killed in drone strikes carried out by the Israeli Defense Force in in Gaza on 1 April

Traveller stopped by customs as he sought to slip out of Hong Kong into the border city of ShenzhenA man has been caught trying to smuggle more than 100 live snakes into mainland China by cramming them into his trousers, according to the country's customs authority.The unnamed traveller was stopped by customs officers as he sought to slip out of semi-autonomous Hong Kong and into the border city of Shenzhen, China Customs said in a statement on Tuesday. Continue reading...

London Symphony Orchestra to play Black Sunday album at Royal Albert Hall decades after featuring on TV showThey might be more used to Rachmaninov and Brahms, but on Wednesday night the London Symphony Orchestra's musicians will be showcasing their perfect crescendos while playing Cypress Hill's Insane in the Brain.The orchestra is making a Simpsons joke from 1996 finally a reality, by playing the US hip-hop trio Cypress Hill's acclaimed Black Sunday album at the Royal Albert Hall. Continue reading...

Fire caused by explosion at Derrimut chemical factory brought under control but likely to continue burning, Fire Rescue Victoria says

The paintings made global headlines after being moved to Mona's female toilets in protest against a court ruling. But they were never real to begin with

In today's newsletter: At least 30 have died after a missile hit the Okhmadyt facility in Ukraine's capital - this is how the city continues to life under bombardment Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning.At least 38 civilians were killed and nearly 200 injured after Russian missiles struck cities across Ukraine in the early hours of Monday morning. In Kyiv powerful missiles hit Ukraine's largest children's hospital which is also its main treatment centre for children with cancer, demolishing the top two floors, shattering windows and destroying an entire ward. Another Russian strike later that same day hit a building in the capital where a maternity hospital is located, killing at least seven people. Images of bloodied children and piles of rubble sent shockwaves around the world.UK politics | Suella Braverman has sparked a backlash after she attacked liberal Conservatives", saying she was angered by the flying of the Progress Pride flag in her department when she was the UK home secretary, and calling it a monstrous thing".US election 2024 | The White House clarified that Joe Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physicals, after a heated exchange between the president's press secretary and journalists seeking an explanation for a Parkinson's disease specialist visited the White House eight times in as many months.Work | Campaigners for a four-day working week are preparing a new pilot project on flexible working in the hope that the Labour government will be more receptive to such changes.Water | Thames Water said it intended to tap investors for fresh funds as it would run out of money by next June without a cash injection, raising fears over its potential collapse.Health | The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found. The tax, which came into force in April 2018, has been so successful in improving people's diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar food and drink products is a no-brainer". Continue reading...

Nurse tells NSW supreme court murder trial she offered to let Haigh wait in a spare bedroom but the offer was rejected by Robert Geeves

Public sector faces staffing and training problems and is less able to manage complex cases, survey findsThe vast majority of eye doctors believe increased outsourcing of cataract operations to private clinics in England in recent years has negatively affected their NHS departments, research has found.Almost three-quarters of ophthalmologists surveyed said that outsourcing of cataracts to the private sector had a negative impact on their NHS eye care departments, with 54% flagging a large negative impact and 16% a small one. Continue reading...

Hospitals are stretched to their limits during unseasonably early heatwave, as medical authorities liken public health risk to a natural disaster'Medical experts in Japan are to add a most severe" category to the current heatstroke index, amid warnings that the extreme heat is straining medical services and causing damage to public health comparable to that in a natural disaster".The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine said it would add a fourth category to the three-level classification later this year in an attempt to reduce deaths from heatstroke. Continue reading...

Stephen Fleming, 45, appears in court after body of 67-year-old Coolaroo woman found at Epping waste facility

Issue of burden-sharing threatens to become major stumbling block should second Trump administration come into powerEuropean leaders at the Nato summit in Washington are focused on explaining to ordinary American taxpayers that the military alliance is worth the money, as the issue of burden-sharing has become a political football for both parties in the US - and threatens to become a serious stumbling block for the alliance should a second Trump administration come to power.There is a debate in the United States that the US are doing a lot to support Ukraine and Europe is not doing enough. If you look at figures, it's actually a different picture. Europe is doing more than the United States: the financial support, military support we all have provided so far has been enormous ... We are taking the security and defense seriously," said Edgars Rinkvis, the president of Latvia, during a speech on Tuesday alongside former CIA director Leon Panetta and the Estonian defense minister, Hanno Pevkur. It's also very important to explain to the American public." Continue reading...

Exclusive: after success of first trial, group running second scheme in autumn hopes Labour will be more receptiveCampaigners for a four-day working week are preparing a new pilot project on flexible working in the hope that the Labour government will be more receptive to changes in how people work.The pilot project has opened to companies to sign up for a November start, with findings to be presented to the government in the summer of 2025. Continue reading...

Police located the 17-year-old accused of killing a man in a car crash after he allegedly failed to comply with bail conditions

Pro-independence MP Emmanuel Tjibaou heads to France this weekend amid Kanak pride in election of big brother'New Caledonia's first pro-independence MP in decades has vowed to take the frustrations of the Indigenous Kanak to France's parliament, saying young people have been left by the wayside" in the Pacific archipelago.Emmanuel Tjibaou, the son of famous Kanak independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou who was assassinated in 1989, was elected on 7 July as one of two MPs representing New Caledonia. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Data shows 100 Australian women admitted to specialist units in 2009-2022 as result of DV but researchers say this is likely an underestimate

Seventh and most recent victim was ambushed while driving, as most cases thought likely to be work-relatedSeven reporters have been killed in Pakistan in the first six months of 2024, a record annual number with half a year still to go.The most recent victim was Khalil Jibran, a former president of a local press club in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan. He died in June when the car he was driving was ambushed by two men who dragged him out and shot him multiple times. Continue reading...

More than 600 accounts were affected by failings in Australian Taxation Office systems, which included false debts' wrongly extracted from taxpayer

Putin intent on total subjugation' and wiping Ukraine off the map, says Biden; Russia lacks troops or ammo for major offensive'. What we know on day 868 Continue reading...

Pier, which has delivered the equivalent of a single day's pre-war land aid deliveries in two months, will reportedly be removed in a few days' timeA US military pier, built two months ago as a way to bring sea-borne humanitarian aid into Gaza, is to be permanently dismantled within a few days, according to a new report.The Associated Press (AP) reported that the pier, which has had to be moved repeatedly to avoid bad weather, would be reconnected to the Gaza coastline on Wednesday but would operate for just the next few days before being disassembled by the US army and navy. Continue reading...

The area, packed with royal history and dragon symbols, has been private since it was built 175 years agoThe appearances of royals on the Buckingham Palace balcony has long been a focal point of national events. From Queen Victoria welcoming troops back from Crimea and George V celebrating the end of the Great War to the late Queen Elizabeth II on her platinum jubilee, it has gained iconic status.But the palace room immediately behind its famous net curtains has remained private since the east wing was built 175 years ago. Continue reading...

Critical step for president in convincing foreign leaders he remains up to task of leading 32-member military allianceJoe Biden has announced that Nato countries will provide Ukraine with five new strategic air defense systems as leaders began a summit in Washington where the alliance was expected to declare Ukraine's path toward Nato to be irreversible".The promise of weapons deliveries, including anti-air defenses sought after by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, came just a day after a deadly missile strike against a pediatric cancer hospital and other civilian targets in Ukraine that Biden called a horrific reminder of Russia's brutality". Continue reading...

Public figures call for release of Tori Towey, 28, who says attempt was response to alleged domestic violence attackA 28-year-old woman from Ireland has been charged with attempting suicide" by a court in Dubai, with politicians and campaigners calling for her release.Tori Towey, who works in the United Arab Emirates as an airline cabin crew member, was allegedly attacked and left with severe bruising and other injuries in a violent incident. Continue reading...

Officials say the AI-enabled campaign to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda involved 1,000 social media accountsThe US Department of Justice said on Tuesday that it disrupted a Russian operation that used fake social media accounts enhanced by artificial intelligence to covertly spread pro-Kremlin messages in the United States and abroad.The news comes four months before the US presidential election, which security experts widely believe will be the target of both hacking and covert social media influence attempts by foreign adversaries. Senior US officials have said publicly they are monitoring for schemes intended to disrupt the vote. Continue reading...

Move goes toward solidifying Republican support around the party's presumptive nomineeNikki Haley is releasing the delegates she won during this year's Republican primary so that they're free to support Donald Trump at next week's convention, a move that goes toward solidifying GOP support around the party's presumptive nominee.Haley on Tuesday opted to release 97 delegates she won across a dozen primaries and caucuses earlier this year, according to her former campaign. Continue reading...

Conservationists say it's a slap in the face' to those who are trying to save the threatened speciesThe Canadian province of Alberta has quietly reversed a two-decade ban on hunting grizzly bears, in what conservations described as a slap in the face" amid continuing debate over the future of the threatened species.Alberta first banned the hunting of grizzly bears in 2006 after the population of the species, which once reached as many as 9,0000 bears, collapsed due to generations of overhunting, agriculture development and urbanization. Continue reading...

Roger Pearce withdraws allegation Dave Morris was among anarchists who planned to plant bombs at military baseAn undercover police officer who went on to become the head of the Metropolitan police's special branch has admitted he mistakenly accused an activist of planning to plant bombs at a military base.Roger Pearce, the undercover officer who infiltrated anarchist groups in the 1980s, had alleged to a public inquiry that he drove to Aldershot with a group of anarchists to recce bomb sites". He accused Dave Morris of being one of the anarchists. Continue reading...

Authorities refused to grant access for judge and legal teams to visit island, where dozens of Tamil asylum seekers are strandedThe US government has blocked the UK from holding a court hearing in one of its own territories, it emerged on Tuesday.The hearing was due to take place on the remote island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to consider the fate of dozens of Tamil asylum seekers stranded there for more than 1,000 days who claim they are being unlawfully detained. Continue reading...

Nato official warns there could be further Russian strikes on Ukraine this week to try to draw attention away from eventWorld leaders flew into Washington DC on Tuesday for a two-day Nato summit where they are expected to agree enhanced military support for Ukraine against a backdrop of questions about Joe Biden's mental sharpness.Britain's new prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were among those arriving at the US capital amid a warning that Russia could step up missile strikes on Ukraine this week, repeating a barrage that killed at least 38 on Monday. Continue reading...

Former chair of Whitehall agencies overseeing state-owned businesses gives view on what went wrongThe former chair of a Whitehall agency responsible for taxpayers' interest in the Post Office has blamed the Horizon IT scandal on a mixture of incomplete curiosity" and a toxic culture" at the state-owned company.Robert Swannell, a veteran City businessman and former Marks & Spencer chair, was speaking on Tuesday before the judge-led public inquiry investigating why post office operators were wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting over financial discrepancies linked to bugs within the Horizon IT system. Continue reading...

For UK consumers the cost of beans could increase by up to 25% over the coming yearThe price of coffee is set to remain very high" and is unlikely to drop until the middle of next year amid intense pressure on supply chains, the Italian coffee company Lavazza has said.We have never seen such a spike in price as the trend right now," said Giuseppe Lavazza, who chairs the company. He admitted that he had been wrong to predict last year that prices would begin to fall this year. On Monday, prices reached $4,300 (3,356) a tonne. Continue reading...

Filing opposes Trump ally's attempt to change his chapter 11 bankruptcy into a chapter seven liquidation of assetsThe former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is treating his bankruptcy case as a joke", lawyers for Donald Trump ally's creditors said in a new filing, alleging the former president's sometime attorney was attempting to avoid accountability by hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man".Since day one," attorneys said, Giuliani has regarded this case and the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man who cannot even remember the address for his second multimillion-dollar home and claims impending homelessness if he must sell that second multimillion-dollar home. Continue reading...

Teenagers each given a year's probation after creating and spreading faked images of female classmates in south-west SpainA court in south-west Spain has sentenced 15 schoolchildren to a year's probation for creating and spreading AI-generated images of their female peers in a case that prompted a debate on the harmful and abusive uses of deepfake technology.Police began investigating the matter last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported that faked naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp groups. Continue reading...

Opposition among senior Tories grows after ex-home secretary derides Progress Pride flag being flown over Home Office

Parliament the most diverse by race and gender the country has ever seen, says Starmer, with the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs in the worldDowning Street has released a full version of what Keir Starmer said in his opening remarks to the metro mayors at their meeting this morning. It is not on the No 10 website, so I will post it here.Having this meeting four days after I was invited by the King to form a government is a real statement of intent on my part, on our part.Because as we have said over and over again, economy and growth is the number one mission of this Labour government in 2024. Continue reading...

William Stampfl was trying to climb Mount Huascaran in 2002 with two friends, one who was found and one who is still missingPolice have found the well-preserved body of an American mountaineer who was buried by an avalanche 22 years ago as he tried to climb one of the highest peaks in the Andes.Police in the Ancash region found the body of William Stampfl on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level. The 58-year-old Stampfl had been trying to climb the 6,768-meter Mount Huascaran. Continue reading...

Cameron Davis had asked to be sectioned hours before he attacked Lorna England, 74, in February last yearA man who stabbed a 74-year-old stranger to death in a Devon park three hours after telling doctors he would kill someone when they refused to section him has been found guilty of murder.Cameron Davis stabbed Lorna England in the heart and neck as she walked home from the shops in Exeter. When he was arrested, Davis told police: I warned you ... why didn't they listen to me at the hospital?" Continue reading...

Darryl Anderson was almost three times over drink-driving limit when he crashed, killing Karlene Warner and her nephew Zackary BladesA man who was almost three times over the drink-driving limit when he crashed into a car, killing a baby and his aunt, has been jailed for more than 17 years.Darryl Anderson, 38, had been driving his Audi Q5 erratically from Newcastle airport, having drunk on the plane back from a shortened holiday after falling out with his wife. Continue reading...

Mayor describes transport minister's decision to honour former prime minister, who died last year, as crazy'A backlash is growing in Italy against a decision to rename Milan's main airport after the controversial late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, with the city's mayor describing the decision as crazy".More than 35,000 people have signed a petition calling on Giorgia Meloni's government to stop the plan after the transport minister, Matteo Salvini, said he would give the final go-ahead to a decision by Enac, the Italian civil aviation authority, to rename Malpensa airport in memory of my friend Silvio". Continue reading...

Indian prime minister travelled to Moscow for two-day summit and chit-chat' amid diplomatic complexities

This live blog is closedHere is the video clip of US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, saying gaps remain between Israel and Hamas in ceasefire negotiations.In a statement Israel's military has claimed to have eliminated dozens of terrorists and located numerous weapons" in Gaza City. It says it was acting following intelligence indicating the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist infrastructure in the area". Continue reading...

Death certificate seen by BBC says broadcaster, 69, died from acute peritonitis and a perforated gastric peptic ulcerThe former Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright died from a ruptured ulcer in his stomach, according to his death certificate.The veteran broadcaster, who died at the age of 69 in February, died from acute peritonitis and a perforated gastric peptic ulcer, the certificate seen by the BBC said. Continue reading...

Kelly Whip vehicle at Harlyn Bay beach was towed back to safety once tide had gone outHolidaymakers in Cornwall had to come to the rescue along with the coastguard when an ice-cream van parked on the beach was washed out to sea by the incoming tide.Seawater flooded the Kelly Whip ice-cream van parked on Harlyn Bay beach, near Padstow, on Sunday and dragged it into the sea. The coastguard confirmed that the driver was found safe and was not in the vehicle at the time. Continue reading...