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Bronze of jailed Wikileaks founder fighting extradition to the US flanked by figures of whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea ManningA bronze sculpture of three figures including the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in Parliament Square on Saturday as part of the campaign for his release from prison in London where he is under threat of extradition to the US.The lifesize sculpture of Assange alongside the whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, all standing atop chairs, was unveiled before a crowd holding Free Julian Assange" signs. Continue reading...

Leading thinktank finds just 6% have full trust in political system, and most support constitutional reformThe British public's trust in the political system has fallen significantly since the pandemic, potentially as a result of recent political scandals, according to a report from a leading thinktank.Just 6% of the public have full trust in the current political system, while 89% support constitutional reform, the report found. Continue reading...

Russian president gives televised address as Yevgeny Prigozhin claims to have taken over city of Rostov

Referral unit providers warn of overwhelming demand from unprecedented poor behaviour after pandemic lullReferral units for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools are warning that they are full to bursting because of unprecedented levels of disruptive behaviour across the country.Providers that take children excluded from mainstream schools say that after a lull during the pandemic, the situation has deteriorated, and they have seen permanent exclusions rising across the country in the past year. The situation had appeared to be improving with the latest government data on permanent exclusions in England showing that they fell in the spring term last year to 2,200 from 2,800 in 2019. Continue reading...

The cost of living is falling in Europe and the US but is still rising in Britain. We look at the major culpritsThe Bank of England has struggled to understand why inflation remains high in the UK. It has fallen in France, Germany, the US and especially Spain, where inflation dropped to 2.9% in May compared with the UK figure of 8.7%. Here we look at the many reasons for the current crisis. Continue reading...

Groups such as Samba Que Elas Querem, whose rewrite of a samba classic prompted a legal tussle, are taking on the patriarchyIt was a typical Friday night at the Beco do Rato, a samba club tucked down a dark alleyway in Rio de Janeiro's nocturnal Lapa district. A group of musicians beat their tantas, tambourines and agogo bells to an audience of sweaty samba lovers who sang along.Yet something about this scene was different: the band's nine musicians were all women, and the crowd was also overwhelmingly female. Continue reading...

Real stories of people in peril, the Titanic submersible trip to the Thai cave disaster, affirm a collective wish for human ingenuity and spirit to triumphThe discovery of wreckage from the Titan submersible last Thursday on the North Atlantic seabed close to the wreck of the Titanic brought to an end a five-day vigil of hope around the globe. The chances of rescuing the five occupants of the missing sub always appeared slight, but it was perhaps the very unlikeliness of that outcome that increased the appetite to see it realised.In the era of 24-hour news, few events grab the public imagination quite as firmly as a real-time people-in-peril story. And it's hard to imagine a more extreme or unpleasant peril than being trapped in deep sea in a craft the size of a minivan, as the oxygen supply runs out, and there is nothing to do but attempt to control your breathing in a situation that screams panic. Continue reading...

Other senior staff allowed rollout to begin 10 days before Treasury's formal green light, new book claimsSteve Barclay frustrated health officials by delaying the Treasury's signoff on the Covid vaccine programme, amid wider hold-ups by the department in approving the financing for the project, a new book about the NHS has claimed.Barclay, who is now the health secretary, has rejected the claim. But one senior figure in the vaccine programme told journalist Isabel Hardman that Barclay, who was then chief secretary to the Treasury and lead minister on the vaccine taskforce, was a block. Continue reading...

Australian prime minister says it is Russia and its involvement that keeps this war going'. This blog is now closed

Sydney protest was held over the decision to block the building of a new Russian embassy near Parliament House in Canberra

Small number could attend graduation but later be told they have failed as pay dispute affects assessments at 145 universitiesTens of thousands of university students are being left in limbo without their final degree results this summer, including some who could attend graduation ceremonies only to be told later that they have failed.About a third of the UK's 500,000 final-year undergraduates are thought to have been affected by the marking and assessment boycott at 145 universities, part of the pay dispute between the University and College Union (UCU) and employers that has strained relations between staff, students and management. Continue reading...

After struggling through degrees hindered by Covid, those affected by boycott now say they face missing job opportunitiesRay, 21, recently missed out on a dream job at a charity after they were unable to present their degree classification. Due to the marking boycott, they have now been waiting for eight weeks for their dissertation result alongside another unmarked module.It's been deeply upsetting. I've worked really hard, I've been in the library until 3am. Continue reading...

Michelle Lyn Melbourne and Nikita May Bennett's ute found at Seven Mile Diggings locked with their mobile phones inside

Jewish groups decry vomit-inducing' frenzy of auctions before impending law change that will also prohibit public display of items

Exclusive: Backbenchers tell Michael Gove they may oppose bill designed to stop sanctions separate to those set by governmentMichael Gove is on a collision course with a handful of Conservative MPs over his plans to stop public bodies boycotting Israel.A group of Tory backbenchers have made clear to the levelling up, housing and communities secretary they have concerns about the economic activity of public bodies bill, which is due to return to the Commons within weeks for a second reading. Continue reading...

Judge suggests there may have been interference with administration of justice' and government officials could be referred to relevant authorities'

Shoppers for consumer group Which? ordered 1,800 items to test the average shelf life at six retailersFrom out-of-date frankfurters to bashed brie, online food shopping can be a lottery, especially when it comes to the groceries' shelf life, according to an investigation by the consumer group Which?.Groceries delivered by Sainsbury's were found to have the shortest average time left before their use-by dates, according to the items received by a team of 12 mystery shoppers located around the UK. Continue reading...

Foreign secretary describes newspaper report of frustration with Tory party rows with as nonsense'The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has described suggestions that he was considering standing down from parliament at the next general election as nonsense".Cleverly declared he was standing at the next election" after newspaper reports claimed he was considering whether to stand. Continue reading...

Canadian transport watchdog to launch safety investigation; Stockton Rush reportedly emailed deep-sea expert saying concerns were baseless cries'

Jury finds Louis De Zoysa shot Matt Ratana in Croydon with revolver he probably hid under armpitA man has been found guilty of murdering a police custody sergeant with a gun he had smuggled into a cell.A jury at Northampton crown court convicted Louis De Zoysa, 25, of murdering Sgt Matt Ratana, 54, with a gunshot to the chest at a custody block in Croydon, south London, in September 2020. Continue reading...

Boat capsized in strong winds with most passengers feared dead, according to four survivors cited by migrants' organisationThirty-seven people are missing after their boat capsized between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday, citing an account by four survivors of the shipwreck.The UN agency said the survivors, all from sub-Saharan Africa, arrived on Lampedusa late on Thursday, having been rescued from the shipwreck by another vessel. Continue reading...

The man was taken into custody in London after failing to provide the pin to his phone when asked to by officersNo further action will be taken against a French publisher who was arrested after being stopped at St Pancras station on suspicion of terror offences, the Metropolitan police have said.The 28-year-old man, who was previously named by his employer as Ernest Moret, was stopped by border officers as he arrived at the north London station at about 7.30pm on 17 April. Continue reading...

FSB opens criminal case after Yevgeny Prigozhin accuses Russia's military of rocket attack and says evil' leadership must be stoppedRussia's FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Wagner's Yevgeny Prigozhin after the mercenary chief accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to destroy" his rivals.In an extraordinary series of audio clips released late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that a Russian rocket attack had killed scores of his fighters, vowing to take revenge" and stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country". Continue reading...

Film-maker who has dived to Titanic wreckage more than 30 times says it was only a matter of time' before tragedy occurredVeteran deep-sea explorer and film-maker James Cameron said on Friday that the design of the Titan submersible was critically flawed", and it was only a matter of time" before the tragedy occurred - as Canada's transportation safety board said it was launching an investigation.People in the deep sea submergence engineering community warned the company that this could lead to catastrophic failure," Cameron told ABC's Good Morning America show on Friday morning, referring to the carbon fiber hull of the 22ft (6.7m) vessel. Continue reading...

Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-installed governor of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, says Chongar bridge would be closed for around 20 days. This live blog is now closed

Tony King from Eastbourne will serve at least 22 years and 182 days for killing Tommy Cooper's nieceA man has been jailed for life for the murder of the niece of late comedian Tommy Cooper.Tony King, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, will serve a minimum of 22 years and 182 days for the murder of Sabrina Cooper, which was described as motiveless and senseless" by the judge. Continue reading...

Yevgeny Prigozhin dismisses justification for war that Kyiv was planning 2022 attack on Donbas and Crimea

The award-winning lyricist, known for his longtime partnership with composer Jerry Bock, died of natural causesThe Tony and Grammy award-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who with composer Jerry Bock made up one of the premier musical-theater songwriting duos of the 1950s and 1960s with shows such as Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and The Apple Tree, has died. He was 99.Harnick died in his sleep on Friday in New York City of natural causes, said Sean Katz, Harnick's publicist. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Head of ground forces says everything is still ahead' in counteroffensive against Russia

Concerns raised over craft's safety standards and lack of certification as US Navy reports likely implosion

Ship that docked in Tilbury in 1948 with men, women and children onboard would become a byword for a generationOn 22 June 1948, the Empire Windrush approached the docks in Tilbury in Essex. Most of the people onboard - 1,025 passengers and two stowaways - listed a previous address in one of the Caribbean islands, British Guiana or Bermuda, all then part of the British empire.But while the journey must have been personally pivotal for many of them, none could have imagined that Windrush would become a byword for a generation arriving from the Caribbean, and that would help shape their new homeland. Continue reading...

Paris Mayo, now 19, violently assaulted newborn in 2019 to stop family finding out about the birthA woman has been found guilty of murdering her newborn baby when she was 15 to prevent her family discovering she had been pregnant.Paris Mayo, now 19, gave birth to her son, Stanley, alone and in silence in the living room of her home in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, while her parents and brother slept upstairs. Continue reading...

Pioneering lives of people who arrived in Britain in 1948 must be documented before they are lost to historyWhenever I pass a war memorial or even a single gravestone I cannot help but wonder what stories lie beneath each name. Where were they born, what sort of family did they come from, where did they work, did they marry, have children, what did their children go on to achieve, where and how did they die?Nowhere is this feeling stronger than when I view the passenger list of the Empire Windrush. A series of names - 1,027 of them - but what was their story? Three years ago, I began to research and document the lives of these people before they are for ever lost to history.Bill Hern is a retired civil servant turned historian, who is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society Continue reading...

Exclusive: Maj Gen Aidarus al-Zoubaidi says a Houthi-run north and STC-led south is the new realityThe leader seen as integral to solving Yemen's nine-year civil war has said the west has to accept a new reality in which Yemen's north is controlled by the Houthis and the south is run by his separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).In a Guardian interview, Maj Gen Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, the president of the STC and vice-president of the UN-recognised government of Yemen, said the planned talks on the country's future had to be reconfigured to meet that new reality, including by putting the issue of a separate southern state at the foreground of discussions. The talks are largely under the control of Saudi Arabia, which wants to find a way to extricate itself from a war that is estimated to have caused more than 250,000 deaths. Continue reading...

Infosys executive vice-president tells parliamentary committee he met with former Coalition minister 11 times

Finance committee focusing on tax treatment of billionaire mega-donor's gifts to supreme court justiceThe rightwing billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow is facing a possible showdown with Senate investigators looking into the financial arrangement behind lavish vacations, private flights and other perks that were given to the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas but never publicly disclosed.At the centre of the Senate investigation are questions about the tax treatment of the gifts - which could be worth millions of dollars - and what Crow's financial treatment of those expenses might reveal about the true nature of his relationship with Thomas. Continue reading...

Strike will be longest single period of industrial action by junior doctors in history of health serviceJunior doctors in England will strike for five days from 13 July in their longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service, the British Medical Association has said.The announcement was made as a BMA survey found junior doctors have been inundated with more opportunities to move abroad in the last four months than ever before. Just over half of the nearly 2,000 junior doctors surveyed said they had received more job advertisements from recruiters to overseas jobs since strikes were announced. Continue reading...

Matteo Bottarelli accused of three counts of attempted murder over incident at Central Middlesex hospitalA man has been charged after two people were stabbed at a hospital in north-west London.Matteo Bottarelli, 43, of Central Way, north-west London, will appear at Willesden magistrates court on Friday charged with three counts of attempted murder and two counts of threatening violence with a bladed article in a public place. Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: On the anniversary of Roe v Wade's overturning, one woman tells her story of being forced to carry a baby to term

Inner west and south-west suburbs are first priority under state plans but change will come too late for some

US president sought to play down the impact of his comments, saying I don't think it's had any real consequence'The Chinese government has reportedly reprimanded the US ambassador to China over comments made by President Joe Biden in which he referred to President Xi Jinping as a dictator".Nicholas Burns received the diplomatic note hours after Biden made comments about Xi at a fundraiser in California, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing three unnamed US officials. Continue reading...

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Tories are likely to bear the brunt of homeowning voters' anger in marginal constituencies in next year's electionAs the former chancellor who warned presciently during last summer's leadership contest that Liz Truss would crash the economy, Rishi Sunak's calm competence was meant to be his key electoral selling point.But after Thursday's half-point rate rise by the Bank of England left thousands of voters facing eye-watering mortgage hikes, a shirt-sleeved Sunak was reduced to insisting he was totally, 100% on it" when it comes to fighting inflation. Continue reading...

Peruvian eateries have been a fixture in top 50 list for close to a decade and now one has claimed the crownWhile Peru's archeology heritage began in the 20th century to attract millions of tourists to locations such as Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines, the country's cuisine remained one of South America's best-kept secrets.But in the last two decades, Peru's food - a product of its rich range of crops, ecosystems and a particular history - has become a global brand, with restaurants opening in cities from San Francisco to Sydney. Continue reading...

Statues were unearthed last year in what was a place of worship for both the Etruscans and RomansA trove of bronze statues buried by mud and boiling water for thousands of years before being found in the ruins of a network of ancient thermal springs in a small town in Tuscany are going on display in Rome.The 24 bronzes, mostly dedicated to the gods, are the largest discovery of their kind in Italy and were unearthed last year in the ancient springs of San Casciano dei Bagni, in what used to be a place of worship for both the Etruscans and Romans. Continue reading...

Footage appears to show driver being repeatedly punched through a car window before he was Tasered

Anthony Albanese reveals the solicitor general agrees Senate delays over the housing Australia future fund constitute a failure to pass the bill

Nanjiao weather station in southern Beijing hits 41.1C, half a degree higher than the station's previous monthly recordBeijing logged its hottest June day since records began on Thursday, the national weather service said, as swathes of northern China sweltered in 40-degree heat.On Friday the capital upgraded its warning for hot weather to red" - the highest in a colour-coded alert system - saying most parts of the city could roast in temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). China has a four-tier weather warning system, with red the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue. Continue reading...

Depending on which critics you asked this week, the voice is either a toothless tiger or a threat to treasured institutions - it can't be both

Russia killed 136 children in Ukraine last year, says UN report; Kyiv accuses Moscow's forces of hiding bodies in aftermath of Kakhovka dam breach