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Average cost of a home increased to 260,420 in February, up by 1.2% on a year earlier, says Nationwide

Don Gorske, 70, becomes one of Guinness World Records' longest-running holders with intake of two McDonald's burgers a dayDon Gorske did not have many people betting on him to live into his 70s with his half-century-old habit of eating Big Mac hamburgers daily.But cutting down his intake of the famous McDonald's burgers to two a day (rather than his previous high of nine), skipping fries with his meals and walking six miles daily for exercise has not only helped him become a septuagenarian - it has also allowed him to extend his Guinness world record for most Big Macs eaten in a lifetime to more than 34,000. Continue reading...

Report accused Hideo Kojima of inappropriate touching and patting female workers on their headsA Japanese mayor facing 99 allegations of sexual harassment has resigned after he denied some cases and wept at a press conference.An official investigation accused Hideo Kojima, the mayor of a town in the central Gifu region, of several incidents of harassment, including touching a colleague's breasts and buttocks. Continue reading...

UK haulage firm employs 20,000 people and customers include Asda, Sainsbury's and Waitrose

Owners of Moco, which is opening a space in London, say platform can help bring in younger audiencesInstagram is now vital to art gallery and museum culture and can be used to bring in younger audiences, according to the founders of a Dutch contemporary art space which is coming to London this summer.Kim Logchies-Prins and her husband, Lionel, co-founded the Moco museum of modern, contemporary and street art in Amsterdam and are now opening a new 25,000 sq ft space in London. Continue reading...

Former Labour MP wins almost 40% of vote in contest beset by chaos and controversy - and dominated by the Israel-Gaza war

The National Anti-Scam Centre has warned people to beware after it had more than 400 reports of these investment scams in 2023

Zachary Rolfe evidence calls into question the testimony of several senior officers to the court earlier this week

Bureau of Meteorology says only 2018-19 and 2019-20 summers were warmer, meaning Australia's three hottest seasons have occurred in the past six years

Government says regulator is looking into the disruption which prevented more than 100 calls being transferred to emergency services

Lehrmann's lawyers also admit client's evidence is unsatisfactory' but say it would be overstating it to say he is a compulsive liar'

Publishers informed on Friday Meta would not enter new deals when current contracts expire and Facebook news tab would shut down in April

This blog is now closed.

Israeli military denies shooting into large crowds of hungry people and says most were killed in crush or run over trying to escapeMore than a hundred Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Thursday morning, Gaza health officials said, when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire, in an incident that the US president, Joe Biden, warned was likely to complicate ceasefire talks.There were starkly different accounts of how the victims died in the chaos that took place near Gaza City in the north of the strip. Continue reading...

Eleven people treated for smoke inhalation after fire breaks out in residential building in LondonEleven people have been taken to hospital after a fire broke out at a converted terraced house in the upmarket London neighbourhood of South Kensington.Fifteen fire engines and about 100 firefighters were called to the fire at a terraced house converted into apartments on Emperor's Gate, in the south-west of London, close to the Natural History Museum. Continue reading...

Cardiff's finance minister says her 2023 budget could be redundant if the chancellor makes radical tax changesThe Welsh government has warned it could be forced to redraw its budget only one day after it is approved by the assembly should Jeremy Hunt make tax and spending policy changes that affect Wales in his budget in March.Cardiff's finance minister, Rebecca Evans, said she was concerned that her budget, which was published as a draft in 2023 for discussion and will be completed on 5 March, could become redundant if Hunt adopts radical measures in his budget the following day. Continue reading...

Labor highlights tax changes and legacy of late MP Peta Murphy, while Liberals' Nathan Conroy tells scared' voters to send a message' to government on law and order

Deputy leader Sussan Ley refuses to delete tweet claiming Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals'

Police to question two boys and two girls over Wonga Park burglary and arson attacks on Mill Park restaurant and Ballarat tobacconist

With Rochdale win, Galloway has been elected to represent voters in four cities for three parties across four decadesMeeting Saddam Hussein in 1994, George Galloway told the Iraqi dictator: I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." Thirty years on, even Galloway's most vocal opponents must salute his indefatigability, if nothing else, as the 69-year-old father of six takes yet another seat in parliament.His stunning win in Rochdale was his seventh parliamentary victory of a political career in which he has represented four cities and three parties across four decades, equalling Winston Churchill's constituency-hopping record. Continue reading...

Court found those responsible for tour had not conducted adequate risk assessments ahead of deadly eruptionA New Zealand court has ordered the tour booking agents and managers of an island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people to pay survivors more than NZ$10m ($6.1m) and fined them around NZ$2.6m.Tour operators White Island Tours, Volcanic Air Safaris, Kahu New Zealand and Aerius, along with the corporate owner of the island, Whakaari Management Ltd, were found to have not sufficiently ensured the safety of visitors to the island, court filings showed. Continue reading...

Victorian Labor senator and former trade unionist remembered by colleagues after dying on Thursday night

Gap projected to reach 228,800 a head by 2030, according to report by thinktank IPPR NorthWealth inequality between the north and south of England is set to grow, with the gap reaching 228,800 per head by 2030, according to a thinktank report.The Institute for Public Policy Research North's annual State of the North report states that although the average wealth of people in England has grown from about 226,300 in 2010 to 290,800 by 2020, inequalities between regions have almost doubled in the same period. Continue reading...

From the Tate Britain to New York's Met, some of the world's mightiest galleries have signed up for my audio guides, which shift the spotlight onto female artists like Rosa Bonheur - who required a permit to wear trousersDo women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?" asked a 1989 artwork by the Guerrilla Girls, the all-female-identifying activist artist collective. A valid question considering, as the work went on to point out: Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female." When the Guerrilla Girls went to revisit these statistics in 2012, they found that little had changed: Less than 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female."So what about today? In 2023, Marina Abramovi made headlines, not for her performance art but, shockingly, as the first female artist to have a solo exhibition in all the main galleries of the Royal Academy in London. The same institution, founded 256 years ago, today opens its first ever solo exhibition dedicated to a female artist working prior to the 19th century: Angelica Kauffman. Continue reading...

Disclosure, calculated on basis of 300 deportations, called staggering' by chair of home affairs committeeRishi Sunak's flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost taxpayers 1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali, Whitehall's official spending watchdog has disclosed.The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to the central African state, Sunak has signed up to pay 370m from the public purse over the five-year deal. Continue reading...

Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative PM, never stopped working for Canadians,' Justin Trudeau says after his deathBrian Mulroney, the former Canadian prime minister who struck a free trade deal with the US but whose legacy was marred by revelations of improper business dealings with an arms dealer, has died at the age of 84.His daughter announced the death in a social media post. Continue reading...

The 82-year-old will stay in overnight and has already undergone tests but spokesperson says no immediate concerns identifiedThe president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, has been taken to hospital after feeling unwell.The 82-year-old was taken for tests in Dublin on Thursday after being assessed by a doctor at his official residence in the capital, Aras an Uachtarain. Continue reading...

Airport among targets in Port-au-Prince as Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue', vows to capture top officials in PM's absenceHeavy gunfire paralyzed Haiti's capital on Thursday as a powerful gang leader warned he would try to capture the country's police chief and government ministers.The move came during the absence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is in Kenya trying to finalize details for the deployment of a foreign armed force to Haiti to help combat gangs. Continue reading...

More than 30 news organisations sign open letter demanding freedom to report conflict in safetyMore than 30 news organisations have signed an open letter expressing solidarity with journalists working in Gaza and calling for their protection and freedom to report.The letter, coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), was signed by global news agencies AFP, AP and Reuters, as well as other leading media outlets including the Guardian, the New York Times, BBC News and Israel's Haaretz. Continue reading...

Attempt to stop movement through perilous rainforest leaves people stuck in two remote Caribbean townsMigration towards the US through a perilous but increasingly well-trodden rainforest border crossing has ground to a halt after the Colombian navy arrested two boat captains for trafficking migrants.But the attempt to stop movement through the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama has left more than 3,000 people stranded in two remote Caribbean towns, where officials fear the bottleneck could cause a public health emergency. Continue reading...

Inquiry into serial sexual offender Wayne Couzens outlines multiple failings by police forcesThe full extent of Wayne Couzens' alleged offending was laid bare in a devastating official report that revealed accusations of serial sexual abuse including rapes, before he used his status as a police officer to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.His alleged offending going back nearly 20 years, included two allegations of rape, sexually assaulting a girl, barely in her teens, and several incidents of indecent exposure. Continue reading...

Doctors admit helping patients quit vaping is a new experience' ahead of a near-total ban coming into force on 1 July

Chong Ke, from Vancouver, under investigation after allegedly using ChatGPT to cite case law - but those cases did not existA lawyer in Canada is under fire after the artificial intelligence chatbot use she used for legal research created fictitious" cases, in the latest episode to expose the perils of using untested technologies in the courtroom.The Vancouver lawyer Chong Ke, who now faces an investigation into her conduct, allegedly used ChatGPT to develop legal submissions during a child custody case at the British Columbia supreme court. Continue reading...

Gwent police officers being investigated after incident in which three friends died and two others were trapped for almost 48 hoursA police watchdog is investigating seven officers over a car crash in which three friends died and two others were trapped for almost 48 hours.The Gwent police officers are being investigated over how missing person reports were handled, how they dealt with family members, how searches were carried out and for remarks made at the scene of the crash. One officer is under criminal investigation for allegedly falsifying their witness statement.Two officers concerning their review of missing person reports. One officer for potential misconduct and another, who was previously served at the level of misconduct, now for possible gross misconduct.One officer for potential gross misconduct concerning their face-to-face communication with family members at a police station and how they dealt with the information received.Two officers for gross misconduct concerning whether or not they carried out searches of the homes of two of the people reported missing. One of these officers is also under criminal investigation for allegedly falsifying their witness statement.Two officers for misconduct concerning alleged remarks made at the collision scene. Continue reading...

Grant Shapps tells MPs his department's spending exceeded its allocation in last year's budget in light of unstable global situationThe Ministry of Defence has said it had to seek an emergency cash payment of 3.2bn because operational costs overran after military operations in Yemen and the Red Sea - alongside Britain's continued support of Ukraine.Grant Shapps told MPs the MoD's cash requirement for the year exceeds that provided" in last year's budget and that extra money would be required in an end-of-year supplementary estimate. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the Israel-Gaza war, read our most recent report:

Former firearms officer's history of alleged sexual offending dated back to 1995, 347-page report findsWayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and three separate forces could and should have" stopped him, a damning report by Lady Elish Angiolini has found.The 51-year-old former firearms officer's history of alleged sexual offending and predilection for violent and extreme pornography dated back to 1995, it said. Couzens allegedly sexually assaulted a child and attempted to kidnap a woman at knife-point in the years before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard on 3 March 2021. Continue reading...

About 500 council and private properties in Balnagask were identified as having Raac panels in an inspection in 2023Hundreds of people are being moved out of their homes in Aberdeen after the discovery of potentially collapse-risk concrete.Panels made from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) were found in about 500 homes in the Balnagask area of Aberdeen, including 364 council properties, in 2023. Continue reading...

Talkshow host says she will donate all her shares to eliminate any perceived conflict around her taking weight-loss medications'Oprah Winfrey announced she was leaving WeightWatchers on Thursday and giving away all her stock - a move that follows the TV talk queen revealing that her recent dramatic weight loss was due to taking new weight-loss drugs.A statement from Winfrey issued by the company said that the talkshow host, a public face for WeightWatchers since 2015, would donate all her shares in the company to the National Museum of African American History and Culture to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight-loss medications". Continue reading...

Chancellor reportedly considering energy windfall levy as well as scrapping the non-dom statusThe Conservative peer and former MP Stewart Jackson has also made the point about Rishi Sunak's comments yesterday echoing what Suella Braverman has been saying. (See 9.25am.) He suggests Sunak is a weathercock, buffeted by events".Rishi Sunak is now saying what #SuellaBraverman rightly said four months ago, and for which she was sacked. Tony Benn astutely divided politicians as between signposts and weathercocks. One can think ahead, the other is buffeted by events. We know which one is which, don't we?We commend the prime minister on his powerful speech at the CST dinner last night, pledging more funding to protect the Jewish community, outlining a new protocol to safeguard our elected representatives and effectively police protests, and drawing a clear line between democratic dissent and mob intimidation.The last few months have seen an extreme rise in antisemitic hate in the UK, which has had a significant effect on British Jews. The prime minister's announcement has made it clear - those bringing chaos to our streets and academic institutions will no longer be allowed to act with impunity. Continue reading...

Inquiry highlights a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability to be an officerThe danger that Wayne Couzens posed to women should have been spotted before he was allowed to join the police, a report has found, and it identified several red flags" in his past. Here is a timeline of Couzens' behaviour.1995 Allegations about Couzens' offending go back more than 25 years before Everard's murder. In the mid-90s, when he was in his early 20s, it is alleged he kidnapped a woman in London. The incident was reported at the time but the perpetrator was never caught. The woman contacted police again when she recognised Couzens in news reports about Everard's murder. Continue reading...

John Cornyn is first to throw his hat into the ring as he leads the race alongside John Thune and John Barrasso - but other hopefuls could emergeThere are as many men named John or Jon in the US Senate as there are African Americans and Latinos combined. Three of them are now vying to become Republican leader in the chamber.Mitch McConnell's announcement on Wednesday that he will step down in November opens the way for a likely contest between senators John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming. On Thursday Cornyn became the first to throw his hat into the ring. Continue reading...

Hakeem Jeffries tells NYT a reasonable number' of Democrats would vote to save speaker if vote resulted in Republican mutinyThe Democratic leadership in Congress has suggested it would protect the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, if he bucks his far-right colleagues and brings a stalled $60bn Ukraine military aid package to a vote, as a new poll shows public support for Ukraine is now fractured down party-political lines.Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, floated the offer in an interview with the New York Times, saying a reasonable number" of Democrats would vote to save the Republican speaker if the Ukraine vote resulted in a Republican mutiny. Continue reading...

Marks & Spencer, which owns 50% of online grocer, is withholding part of the sum, saying targets were missedOcado has threatened to sue Marks & Spencer over a multimillion-pound payment linked to their online joint venture.M&S, which owns 50% of Ocado Retail, is withholding part of the 190m final payment after their delivery tie-up failed to hit certain performance targets. Continue reading...

IAG says demand has remained robust despite UK recession, with capacity close to pre-Covid levelsThe owner of British Airways has announced bumper profits for 2023 on the back of sustained demand for leisure flights, with operating profits doubling year on year and exceeding 2019's pre-Covid haul.IAG reported an annual profit of 2.7bn (2.3bn) after tax, on operating profits of 3.5bn (3bn), with high fares and premium leisure travel compensating for smaller numbers of business travellers. Continue reading...

Exclusive: New police efficiency' laws planned amid political pressure to devote more frontline resources to youth crime

Wage growth from higher employment and hours worked without output gains could fan inflation, Productivity Commission warns

Sam Varley's body was found at house in Harehills, Leeds, on 12 February after police received reports of concernTributes have been paid to a woman described as a light within the community" after a man was charged with her murder.Sam Varley, 44, was found dead at a house in the Harehills area of Leeds on 12 February after the police received reports of concern for a woman believed to be inside. Continue reading...

Russian president threatens tragic' consequences for war interventionists during state of the nation speech

Administrators say closures will take place over next six weeks amid plans to right-size UK store portfolio'