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Nicolae Ciuca says bot named Ion is a world first and that using artificial intelligence is ‘an obligation’ to make better decisionsRomania’s prime minister has presented his “new honorary adviser” – an artificial intelligence assistant named “Ion” that Nicolae Ciuca hailed as the first of its type.Developed by Romanian researchers, Ion’s main task will be to scan social networks to inform the government “in real time of Romanians’ proposals and wishes”, Ciuca said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Investigators say sites set up during occupation of Ukrainian city were part of ‘calculated plan to terrorise’ localsEvidence collected from Kherson in southern Ukraine shows Russian torture centres were not “random” but instead planned and directly financed by the Russian state, according to a team of Ukrainian and international lawyers headed by a UK barrister.The city was under Russian control for eight months, from 2 March last year until Ukrainian forces entered the city on 11 November. Continue reading...

Effects of ‘devastating and punishing’ Home Office system introduced in 2012 now being felt, experts sayMore than half the people trying to secure permanent residency in the UK through the Home Office’s “devastating and punishing” 10-year route struggle to afford food and pay bills, a survey has indicated.The 10-year route to settling permanently in the UK was one of a series of deliberately tough measures introduced in 2012 by Theresa May when she was home secretary, as part of drive to cut net migration. Researchers say the full effects of the policy are only now starting to be felt. Continue reading...

Official figures show £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales last year, down from £11,970 the year beforeSpending on libraries in Britain has fallen by 17%, according to new statistics, despite in-person visits increasing by 68% since the pandemic.Figures released by CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, show that in 2021/22 £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales. This was down from £11,970 in 2020/21 and £12,646 in 2018/19. Continue reading...

Minister for finance says she would ‘like to do it now’ but concedes pressures on the budget are intensifying

Government seeks to bolster confidence in public investigation amid claims process will take too longMinisters are battling to maintain confidence in the official Covid inquiry after it emerged that Matt Hancock entrusted more than 100,000 official WhatsApp messages to a journalist renowned as an outspoken critic of lockdown.The messages, given by the former health secretary to Isabel Oakeshott, who then passed them to the Daily Telegraph, prompted calls from bereaved families’ groups and Labour for the inquiry to be given more teeth and be completed swiftly. Continue reading...

Sir Stephen House, one of UK’s most senior officers, is under investigation by police watchdogOne of Britain’s most senior police officers is being investigated over allegations he described the “bulk” of rape complaints as “regretful sex”.Sir Stephen House, a former deputy commissioner and acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, was referred to the independent police watchdog over the accusation. Continue reading...

Bid to move Harry and Meghan out of Frogmore Cottage reportedly sanctioned by King CharlesThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been asked by the royal family to vacate their UK home, Frogmore Cottage.A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said a request was made for the couple to give up the 17th-century country house, which is close to Windsor Castle in Berkshire. Continue reading...

Johnson backing campaign by family of Joanna Simpson against proposed release of her killer Robert BrownCarrie Johnson has spoken of her fear about the release of the serial rapist John Worboys as she made a personal plea to the justice secretary to keep Robert Brown, the killer of Joanna Simpson, behind bars.Johnson, one of Worboy’s victims, said she understood her loved ones’ feeling of being “like sitting ducks”, ahead of Brown’s proposed release in November after serving half of a 24-year sentence. Continue reading...

Max Woosey, 13, to go back indoors after raising more than £700,000 for North Devon hospiceMost 13-year-olds might have spent those three years preoccupied with schoolwork or hanging out with mates. One teenager however, spent his nights sleeping in a tent to raise money for the hospice that looked after his friend.Now, Max Woosey – who became known as the Boy in the Tent during his years-long fundraising campaign – has decided to go back indoors after three years and more than £700,000 in charitable donations. Continue reading...

Police report discovery in connection with investigation into couple located in Brighton on MondayPolice officers searching for a missing baby have discovered the remains of an infant near to where the child’s parents were arrested after weeks of evading authorities.Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were arrested on suspicion of child neglect and later gross negligence manslaughter after refusing to reveal the location of their missing child, who had not received any medical attention since its birth in early January. Continue reading...

James Bethell says government considered whether all pet cats might have to be put down to contain virusThe UK government considered whether it might have to ask people to exterminate all pet cats during the early days of the Covid pandemic, a former health minister said.It was unclear whether domestic cats could transmit coronavirus, James Bethell said. Continue reading...

Greek president says ‘we are mainly mourning young people’ after collision in which 40 have been confirmed deadThe death toll from the head-on collision of two trains in central Greece is likely to rise with officials acknowledging that scores of people have yet to be accounted for nearly 24 hours after it left 40 dead and many more injured.Rescue services worked against the clock to find survivors as by late Wednesday it became ever more apparent the country was dealing with a train crash the likes of which had not been seen in Europe in decades. Many of the dead were students. By midmorning 35 bodies had been taken to the general hospital in Larissa, the nearest town, some burned beyond recognition, forcing relatives to give DNA samples. Continue reading...

Ukraine officials say ‘epic’ fight on plain near Vuhledar produced the biggest tank battle of the war. This live blog is now closed

Designer Julien Dossena thanks maison’s founder, who died last month, for his ‘radical expression’In silver chainmail hoods and Perspex dresses, aluminium-foil suiting and gleaming white space boots, the faithful came to pay their respects. At the first Paco Rabanne catwalk show since the founder’s death last month at the age of 88, the loyal clients and fans who packed the front row alongside the eminent designers Jean Paul Gaultier and Nicolas Ghesquière mirrored a newly minted catwalk collection which was packed with dazzling silver and rustling tinsel in tribute to the futuristic fashion that made Rabanne famous.Fake fur skirts and trousers made from shards of crystal rustled and shimmied in homage to Rabanne’s delight in fashioning clothes from unlikely materials. The delicate chainmail evening bags which have been a signature and house bestseller for decades made several appearances. Continue reading...

Doctor who treated Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab in March 2020 says breathing tube was in wrong positionAn incorrectly placed breathing tube could have contributed to the death of a 13-year-old boy who became the UK’s first known child victim of Covid-19, a doctor has told the inquest into his death.Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, of Brixton in south London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by coronavirus pneumonia in the early hours of 30 March 2020, three days after testing positive for the virus. Continue reading...

Paul Bew calls on people to respond to substance of Rishi Sunak’s revised Northern Ireland deal alone

Of 33 councils polled, 18 reported a decline in the proportion of families getting their first preferenceThousands of 10 and 11-year-olds have failed to get into their first choice of secondary school as offers were made across England, but the expected increase in demand for year 7 places in some big cities once again failed to materialise.There were predictions that the proportion of children awarded a place at their top choice could hit a record low nationally this year as a result of a baby boom 11 years ago, but in London and Birmingham the number of applications and success rates were similar to last year. Continue reading...

Met Office says start of spring will be colder than usual, after provisionally driest February in 30 yearsMarch may be the first month of meteorological spring but switching the woolly coat for a lighter jacket may have to be put on hold. Forecasters have said temperatures are likely to be slightly colder than usual this year in the UK.As February drew to an end, the Met Office said parts of the country had increased chances of snow, frost and fog in the coming weeks. The odds of wintry showers were particularly short in the first week of March, it said, with coastal areas in the northern and eastern areas of the UK likely to feel it first, before the cold weather moves southwards. Continue reading...

Tens of thousands of borrowers had their loans sold on to providers at which they were unable to switchThe UK government made a £2.4bn “profit” when it pushed tens of thousands of mortgage borrowers “into poverty” after selling their loans on to new lenders, the campaigner Martin Lewis has claimed.The MoneySavingExpert founder was speaking at the launch of a report, which he funded, into the plight of so-called “mortgage prisoners”: a group of borrowers caught up in the fallout from the 2007-08 financial crisis. Continue reading...

Rachel Reeves tasks chancellor with finding money to double England’s doctor and nurse training placesRachel Reeves has challenged Jeremy Hunt to find the money for Labour’s plan to double training places for doctors and nurses – pointing out he said he wanted to “nick” the opposition’s policy just two weeks before becoming chancellor.The shadow chancellor said NHS shortages were causing 1.5 million people in need of medical treatment to say their work was suffering, with new analysis showing it was costing the economy about £700m a year. Continue reading...

Minister for women and equalities dismisses suggestion government should pilot menopause leave for womenPMQs is about to start.Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s chief whip, has said that he thinks the Stormont brake – the mechanism at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol – will turn out to be “fairly ineffective”.Let’s not underestimate the fact that when the EU introduces new laws in the future, it will have an impact on Northern Ireland. And the point of the brake was meant to be to give a means for unionists to oppose that. I think it will have to be used on lots of occasions, though I suspect to be fairly ineffective.As long as it takes us to get, first of all, the analysis, and secondly, the answers from the government, before we make that decision, that’s the time we’ll take.But the one thing I’ll say to you is that we will not have a knee-jerk reaction to this deal. It means too much to us. And we have got to give it real consideration. Continue reading...

Benefactor’s offer allays fears sale of building could strip Birkenhead flat of works built up over 30 yearsAn extraordinary palace of outsider art secretly created in a ground-floor flat in Birkenhead has been saved after a last-minute cash loan offer from a benefactor.Campaigners had feared the flat, known as Ron’s Place, would be stripped of its art and lost forever after the house it is in was put up for auction. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Home Office admits vital access to Schengen Information System II lost for up to four yearsFrontline police and border force officers will remain locked out of information on a key EU database of terror suspects, criminals and immigration offenders for at least another four years, the Home Office has quietly admitted.UK police and security services conducted more than 600m real time checks on the Schengen Information System II [SIS II] in 2019, but the following year lost access to its instant information on policing, national security, or immigration alerts because of Brexit. Ministers said in 2020 they hoped to get access to a planned new EU international law enforcement alert platform “within two or three years”. Continue reading...

Camel, toffee and charcoal feature in Ukrainian collection created under Russian bombsYou would never guess from the immaculate tailoring and finely turned silhouettes of the Litkovska collection shown at Paris fashion week that its production was frequently interrupted by air-raid warnings, which forced the 23-strong team of tailors and stylists to flee the design studio for a bomb shelter. It remains the only Ukrainian brand on the Paris catwalks and is still designed and produced in Kyiv by Lilia Litkovska and her team.

Alun Titford sentenced to seven and a half years and Sarah Lloyd-Jones to six years after daughter died in ‘conditions unfit for any animal’The parents of a disabled teenager have been jailed for manslaughter after she died morbidly obese, having suffered “shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown”.Kaylea Titford was 146kg (22st 13lbs) when she died in October 2020, a few weeks after her 16th birthday. She was born with spina bifida, a spine condition that meant she could not use her legs, and had hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain. Continue reading...

Officers says they expect to make more arrests over violence described by Israeli general as ‘pogrom’Israeli police have arrested five suspects over a Jewish settler rampage in the occupied West Bank earlier this week that an Israeli general described as a “pogrom” and which followed a deadly Palestinian gun attack.Shops in the Palestinian village of Huwara remained closed on army orders on Wednesday amid a heavy Israeli military presence, residents said. A Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli brothers there on Sunday, prompting assaults by settlers on houses and cars during which one Palestinian was killed. Continue reading...

In a country where gay sex is already punishable by life in prison, campaigners have condemned proposed new law as ‘demonisation’MPs in Uganda have reintroduced a controversial anti-LGBTQ bill, with one describing homosexuality as a “cancer”, attracting strong condemnation from rights campaigners.Asuman Basalirwa, an opposition MP, made the remark as he tabled the draft law [pdf] which seeks to punish gay sex and “the promotion or recognition of such relations”. Continue reading...

Coffins of those who died are laid out in sports hall in Crotone, Calabria, as body of another child is foundThe grief-stricken relatives of the people who died in a shipwreck off the southern coast of Italy have travelled to the Calabrian town of Crotone, where the coffins of the victims have been laid out in a sports hall.Officials announced on Wednesday that the body of another child had been found, bringing the death toll in the tragedy to 67. Continue reading...

Couple being held on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter have yet to tell police location of infantDetectives fear a missing baby may have come to “serious harm” as a huge search for the infant continues across a 90 square mile stretch of Sussex.Police say Constance Marten and her partner, Mark Gordon, have not told them the location of the baby since their arrest on Monday night after two months of evading authorities. Continue reading...

Heather Hallett hits back at scepticism that Isabel Oakeshott says led her to share Matt Hancock messagesThe Covid-19 public inquiry’s chair has insisted their investigation will not be a “whitewash”, after a journalist claimed that concern over the inquiry’s integrity prompted her to publish private messages shared with her by Matt Hancock.Isabel Oakeshott leaked 100,000 WhatsApp messages involving the former health secretary from the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which are claimed to show he dismissed expert advice to test anyone entering a care home for coronavirus. Continue reading...

Submission says agency’s push to enable LGBTQ+ role models ‘preferences one worldview over another’

Latest statistics show migration from metro areas is still higher than pre-pandemic levels

‘Relay loans’ that can pass on to children follow other moves to make borrowing more flexibleIn an attempt to stimulate China’s flagging housing market, banks in some cities are extending the upper age limit on mortgages to between 80 and 95.Although not a national policy, banks in Beijing, Hangzhou and other big cities have started offering “relay loans” to elderly customers, which pass on to their children in the event that they cannot repay. Continue reading...

Calls for ex-health secretary to publish WhatsApp messages as he dismisses claims as ‘distorted’

Approvals at lowest since 2009 – bar during Covid lockdown – as demand for new homes continues to fallBritain’s mortgage market has contracted for a fifth month in a row, official figures show, as the jump in interest rates that followed Liz Truss’s September 2022 mini-budget continued to trigger a collapse in demand for new home loans.The Bank of England said the drop in January took the number of mortgage approvals to the lowest level since 2009, which followed the 2008 financial crash, excluding the dramatic drop after the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. Continue reading...

Report says Tata Motors approached Britain’s government as group weighs up site in Somerset or SpainJaguar Land Rover’s owner, Tata Motors, has reportedly asked the UK government for more than £500m in state subsidies to build a battery factory in Somerset, in a move seen as crucial to the future of the British car industry.Tata, the Indian conglomerate that owns Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), has asked for the money in the form of grants and support packages such as assistance for energy costs and research funding, the Guardian understands. Continue reading...

Company criticised for late filing made profit of £26.3m in year to December 2021Revolut, the UK’s most valuable fintech company, claims it is at the “finish line” of winning a UK banking licence, as much-delayed accounts revealed its first annual profit.The company has been praised as a high-growth success story by leading UK politicians including the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, but it has also been criticised for the late filing of accounts, as well as EU regulatory breaches and fines. Continue reading...

Based on an original story by the Duffer Brothers, Kate Trefry and Jack Thorne, Stranger Things: The First Shadow promises ‘a journey into the past’After a dance-theatre version of Peaky Blinders and a musical of The Great British Bake Off, Netflix’s Stranger Things is the next TV hit to become a hot-ticket stage show.A new play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, will receive its world premiere later this year at the Phoenix theatre in London’s West End. The script is by Kate Trefry, a writer on the TV series, and is based on an original story by Trefry, the series’ creators the Duffer Brothers, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne. It will be directed by Stephen Daldry. Continue reading...

Sportscar maker’s £495m loss in 2022 follows spending on new models and supply chain problemsAston Martin has revealed that its losses more than doubled during 2022 as the sportscar maker spent heavily on new models and struggled through supply chain problems hitting the global car industry.The UK-listed carmaker reported a loss before tax of £495m in 2022, up from £214m the year before, even as sales rose 26% to £1.4bn. It made an operating loss of £118m after adjusting for some one-off costs, less than the £135m expected by analysts. Continue reading...

Wilkinson has denied she acted recklessly in reporting Higgins’s allegations of rape

Year-on-year February 1.1% decline comes as average price of home drops to £257,406, says NationwideAnnual house price growth in the UK turned negative in February for the first time in almost three years, Nationwide data shows, falling to its lowest level since November 2012.The year-on-year 1.1% fall in prices represented the first annual decline in the cost of a home since June 2020, when the housing market reopened after the first Covid lockdown. Continue reading...

Yolŋu surf rockers claim prestigious prize previously awarded to the likes of Genesis Owusu, the Avalanches and Courtney Barnett

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Annette Musolino tells inquiry she did not withhold legal advice from her boss, the Department of Human Services secretary

Labor MP Peta Murphy rejects claims by broadcasters that further regulation could lead to a reduction in free sport coverage

Exclusive: Gillian Keegan opens up about 16-year-old relative as government prepares to publish Send improvement planThe education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has described her family’s battle to get the right support for her nephew, who has Down’s syndrome, as the government prepares to publish its improvement plan for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England.In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Keegan said the experiences of her 16-year-old nephew Joseph and his family had shown her first-hand how parents of children with Send have to fight every step of the way for the support they need. Continue reading...

Support grows for expansion of free school meals to struggling families in face of rising hungerThe number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million, new data shows, ramping up pressure on ministers to expand the provision of free school meals to struggling families.According to the Food Foundation thinktank, one in five (22%) of households reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January, up from 12% at the equivalent point in 2022. Continue reading...

Labour leader tells Women’s Aid conference he will use his own experience as DPP after collapse in number of chargesKeir Starmer has vowed to make it his “personal mission” to stand up for victims of domestic violence, after a collapse in the number of charges brought for the crime.The Labour leader said that as the director of public prosecutions he had witnessed “the devastating impact domestic violence has on victims and their families”, and how abuse often escalated into other forms of serious violence. Continue reading...

Union calls document ‘incontrovertible proof’ institutions using ‘concerted’ plan to drive down wages