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Rishi Sunak failure to commit to HS2's northern leg has raised concerns about the future of several large-scale transport projectsThe future of several prestige transport projects, including a planned 9bn road tunnel under the Thames, are in increasing doubt this weekend after prime minister Rishi Sunak failed to commit to building the northern section of the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester.MPs and transport industry experts now believe that a number of other schemes, including the Lower Thames Crossing, intended to link Kent and Essex, as well as a new tunnel under the Stonehenge world heritage site, face more delays and may never be built as costs soar and political commitment wanes. Continue reading...

Party loses 40% of 2019 voters in south and Midlands according to exclusive Opinium poll for the ObserverAfter winning the 2019 general election Boris Johnson thanked voters behind the so-called red wall" who had voted Conservative for the first time and helped his party storm to an emphatic victory. You may only have lent us your vote, you may not see yourself as a natural Tory," Johnson said.The then prime minister insisted that the Conservative government's challenge over the coming years would be to earn their trust and repay their faith. By that he meant keep their vote for next time. Continue reading...

Police have not ruled out possible drug overdoses but say they are looking at all avenues' of investigation

With the party riven by factions and differences on policy, the prime minister has a job on his hands trying to find a coherent way forwardBefore what could well be the last Conservative party conference before the next election, more than one MP reflected on the state of the party by invoking the infamous jewellery mogul famed for mocking his own products and torpedoing his brand.It's been like Gerald Ratner saying his products were crap and then wondering why nobody bought them," said one MP, assessing the various criticisms being made of the government by its own MPs. That seems to be what's going on with our offer to voters. It's almost like we've become a sort of protest movement masquerading as a government." Continue reading...

UK business leaders have asked for a meeting with the home secretary to press for a new offence of assaulting or abusing shop staffAlmost 90 retail leaders, including the bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Boots and WH Smith, have written to the government demanding action on rising retail crime, in which violent criminals are emptying stores".The retailers, who also include the bosses of Aldi, Primark and Superdrug, call for the creation of a new UK-wide aggravated offence of assaulting or abusing a retail worker - as already exists in Scotland - which would carry tougher sentences and require police to record all incidents of retail crime and allow the allocation of more resources. Continue reading...

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Education minister Jason Clare supports a recommendation by the ACCC in its latest report into childcare costs

Donald Tusk says his march of a million hearts' is the last chance to save democracy in the countryPoland's largest opposition coalition hopes to fill the streets of Warsaw with its supporters on Sunday, two weeks before a parliamentary election that polls suggest is too close to call.Donald Tusk, the former European Council president who leads the main opposition coalition, has called on supporters to rally in central Warsaw at midday, in what he has dubbed the march of a million hearts", intended as a show of strength before the vote on 15 October. Continue reading...

Election could decide whether country sticks with liberal, pro-western line or begins to lean more towards RussiaSlovakia's election day in picturesThere is a real concern that after the vote Slovakia could become some sort of Trojan horse of Russia in the EU and NATO," said Andrej Matisak, a journalist at Slovak daily Pravda. Continue reading...

Can the campaign for the Indigenous voice defy the polls and climb the goat track' of victory?

Ten children have recently been treated for scalding at Westmead hospital, with injuries to thighs or genital area the most common

Defence secretary says proposal being discussed would reduce reliance on UK and other Nato members' basesThe new defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said he has held talks with army leaders about deploying British troops within Ukraine for the first time for a training programme.Shapps, who met Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for talks in Kyiv earlier this week, said the proposal being discussed would reduce the reliance on the UK and other Nato members' bases. Continue reading...

Exclusive poll for Observer reveals Conservatives have lost support in their southern England heartlands and the Red WallThe coalition of voters that delivered the Tories a big majority at the last election is crumbling, according to dramatic new evidence that the party is losing support in key battlegrounds across England.The findings, revealed in a special poll of 2019 Tory voters for the Observer, comes as Rishi Sunak faces a series of competing and contradictory demands from warring Tory factions ahead of the party's conference in Manchester. Continue reading...

Two more teenagers suffer life-threatening injuries and two more seriously injured in consecutive nearby incidentsThree teenagers have been arrested after a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Luton on Friday.Police were called to Nunnery Lane, Bedfordshire, after reports that three teenagers had been stabbed at about 7pm. Continue reading...

The former NSW premier will launch her legal appeal next month, but some say the extended public attention may further damage her reputation

Watchdog's latest report says childcare in Australia is relatively less affordable for households than in most other OECD countries'

Exclusive: Law Enforcement Conduct Commission does not have direct access to video database, with wait times causing delays to investigations

As the website boasts about increased revenue, some partners say they have not been paid for monthsTravel website Booking.com has left many hotel operators and other partners across the globe thousands of dollars out of pocket for months on end, blaming the lack of payment on a technical issue".The issue is widespread in Thailand, Indonesia and Europe among hoteliers who are venting their frustrations in Facebook groups as rumours swirl about the cause of the failure to pay. Continue reading...

US calls for immediate withdrawal of forces as British troops sent to reinforce Nato peacekeeping forceThe White House has said there is an unprecedented" buildup of Serbian troops and armour along the Kosovo border and called on Belgrade to withdraw them immediately.The Nato peacekeeping force in Kosovo, Kfor, has been reinforced with British troops and the Biden administration said it was consulting with allies to ensure Kfor's posture matches the threat". Continue reading...

Appointment to board of banker who ran rightwing social media platform Parler suggests channel will not turn its back on radical libertarianismThe leadership of the rightwing TV channel GB News is trying urgently to avert fresh public censure following the Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton debacle, the Observer has learned.Under scrutiny are a number of incidents, including last week's crude, on-air attack on the journalist Ava Evans by the actor and pundit Fox, and Friday's interview of Suella Braverman, the home secretary, conducted by the deputy chair of her own party, the Conservative MP Lee Anderson. Continue reading...

In an excruciating BBC interview, the transport minister sticks resolutely to the party line on rail link ... and fails to answer the questionMark Harper is not the first cabinet minister to suffer a difficult early-morning interview, but the transport secretary seemed oddly blindsided by a quizzing about the future of HS2. No fewer than 12 times he dismissed the issue as speculation". If only there were a senior figure from the Department for Transport to clear things up? Here is an edited version of his awkward interview with the BBC Today Programme's Mishal Husain:Husain Has something changed on HS2 plans since the last update to parliament in June? Continue reading...

UK intelligence says Andrei Troshev's meeting with the Russian president will not be viewed positively by Wagner fightersVolodymyr Zelenskiy announced today the creation of the Defence Industries Alliance at Kyiv's first Defence Industries Forum.Right now, the most powerful military-industrial complexes are being determined, as are their priorities and the global standard of defence. All of this is being determined in Ukraine," Zelenskiy said on Telegram. Continue reading...

Northern Research Group manifesto calls for tax devolution, a rail line from Liverpool to Hull and 500,000 new homesRishi Sunak has been urged to appoint a cabinet minister for the north of England by a group of Conservative MPs representing the region, amid nervousness about the Conservatives' chances of retaining the red wall" at the next election.A manifesto released by a caucus of Tory backbenchers, known as the Northern Research Group, called for more tax responsibilities to be devolved from Westminster and the prioritisation of an east-west rail line, linking Liverpool and Hull. Continue reading...

An Observer investigation finds DfE tried to cancel conference with unsuitable' speakers - and experts who criticised state education policy had online posts monitored It felt like a dictatorship': UK teaching experts hit out at government attempt to cancel themThe Department for Education (DfE) is keeping files monitoring the social media activity of some of the country's leading educational experts, the Observer can reveal.At least nine experts have uncovered files held on them, some as long as 60 pages. One individual even discovered the department had compiled an Excel spreadsheet in which officials had detailed who she interacted with. Continue reading...

Specialists critical of official policy claim secret files are being kept on them by the Department for Education Revealed: UK government monitoring education critics' social media accountsIt was a Tuesday night in March, two days before Ruth Swailes, an expert on early years education, was due to travel to Manchester to speak at a conference. Nothing about the event - launching a government-funded hub to improve the education of children under five - had struck her as controversial. But that evening she opened a message from her co- presenter, Dr Aaron Bradbury, saying the government was blocking them both from attending.Moreover, the multi-academy trust organising the event said because these two unsuitable" experts were to be given a platform, the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to pull the plug on the whole conference. Continue reading...

Lord Justice Clive Lewis, whose manner amounted to judicial bullying' in court, has apologised for behaviourOne of the most senior judges in England and Wales has received a formal warning for misconduct after an investigation found he had behaved in a rude and hostile way" amounting to judicial bullying" in court.Lord Justice Clive Lewis, one of the two judges who ruled in the high court that the home secretary had acted lawfully in her decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda - a decision later overturned in the court of appeal by a majority of two to one, and due to be further considered by the supreme court in October - has apologised for his behaviour. Continue reading...

The five-year rule, which puts time limit on reporting sex assaults and rape, allows doctors who may be guilty to continue practisingMore than one in 10 sexual harassment complaints against doctors are not investigated by the General Medical Council because of an arbitary" rule, the Observer can reveal.According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, 13% of sexual misconduct complaints made between the years 2017-18 and 2021-22 were closed without investigation because the GMC is prevented from considering alleged incidents more than five years after the event. Continue reading...

Stephen Pennington, who was jailed in 2009 for the rape of a child, wanted by police after being recalled to prisonPolice have appealed for information on the whereabouts of a sex offender who presents a real risk to children and women".Stephen Pennington, 35, is wanted by Lancashire constabulary after failing to comply with licence conditions and being recalled to prison, the force said. Continue reading...

The explorer is widely thought of as an exploiter today, and didn't know east from west. But a version of his boastful missive is expected to fetch up to 1.2m at auctionIn 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote a letter that would change the landscape of the modern world. I sailed to the Indies with the fleet that the illustrious King and Queen, our sovereigns, gave me, where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people," he wrote after his return to Europe to royal treasurer Luis de Santangel. Of all, I have taken possession for their Highnesses."The events relayed in the letter were the first report of a voyage that really did change the world", says Columbus biographer Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. Continue reading...

After Baku's success in Nagorno-Karabakh, it could attempt to encroach farther, locals believeThe beehives were in no man's land. After the border clash near his village in April, Geram drove down to the fields where his family has been farming for decades and kept a small apiary.But when he got near, he heard gunshots. The Azerbaijanis were firing at him from their new positions on the surrounding hilltops. He ran back to his car and never returned. Continue reading...

Foreign Office says groups are saving lives as X owner questions role of German NGOs in MediterraneanThe German government has rebuked Elon Musk after he criticised the work of rescue ships being operated by German humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean Sea.The owner of X, formerly Twitter, retweeted a video on Friday that showed refugees and aid workers on a boat. The rightwing account that first put the content on the social media platform used the post to praise the populist far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party, which has taken a hard line on migration issues. Continue reading...

Armenian government says 100,000 people have fled since Azerbaijan took control of breakaway regionAlmost all ethnic Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh since Azerbaijan attacked and ordered the breakaway region's militants to disarm, the Armenian government said on Saturday.Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the press secretary to Armenia's prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said 100,417 people had arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a population of about 120,000 before Azerbaijan reclaimed the region in a offensive last week. Continue reading...

Harriet Bolland offers reward and Nottinghamshire police appeal for information over incident at Grade II-listed Mucky DuckThe owner of a Grade II-listed restaurant that was damaged by a stolen digger has offered a reward for information about the incident.The Mucky Duck in Drakeholes, Nottinghamshire, was rammed repeatedly by a digger at about 11.50pm on Wednesday, police said. Continue reading...

Tory former leader criticises Rishi Sunak's potential plans to scrap Manchester leg and change London terminusTheresa May has become the third Conservative former prime minister to criticise Rishi Sunak's potential plans to scale back HS2.As Tory MPs head to Manchester for their annual conference with the fate of the northern leg of the high-speed rail line hanging in the balance, May said it was vital to boost capacity on the west coast mainline. Continue reading...

Stephen Shrimpton, 40, and Jessica Baker, 15, were killed in M53 crash that left several children in hospitalThe family of the driver who died after a school coach crashed on a motorway in Cheshire have paid tribute to him as a loving husband and father".Stephen Shrimpton, 40, was one of two fatalities after the coach overturned on the northbound M53 near junction five at Hooton at about 8am on Friday. Continue reading...

Lubov Chernukhin's amusement centre, which received money from levelling up fund, shuts doors after less than a yearA neon-lit family fun factory" in Hastings might seem an odd place to pop up for a wealthy Tory donor who once paid 160,000 at a party fundraiser to play tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson.But earlier this year Lubov Chernukhin, the prominent donor to the Conservatives, was revealed as the owner of an amusement centre on the south coast full of arcades, mini golf, and interactive games. Continue reading...

Chris Heaton-Harris says package of proposals being formed with aim to restore power sharingTalks between the UK government and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist party over its concerns regarding the Windsor framework have entered their final stages, the Northern Ireland secretary has said.Further changes as part of the framework will come into effect on Sunday, including the green/red lane system for the movement of goods. Continue reading...

At 2am on Sunday the clocks roll forward an hour in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT. So why aren't Queensland, WA and the NT onboard?

Chancellor says system has to be mix of carrot and stick' with more assistance to help people find jobsThe UK's welfare budget could be cut to pave the way for Tory tax cuts, the chancellor has said ahead of the party's annual conference in Manchester.Though Jeremy Hunt said the government was not in a position" to contemplate a decrease in tax immediately, he warned that the welfare budget could be hit further down the line to foot the bill. Continue reading...

Music Venue Trust says 127 grassroots sites have closed or stopped offering music since last summerSmall local music venues are warning that new bands will be left without a place to perform without government help after 127 grassroots sites closed or stopped offering music since last summer.The Music Venue Trust (MVT), which is backing a crowdfunded scheme to take at least nine venues into community ownership, says surging costs and punters reining in spending during the cost of living crisis have combined with pressure from property developers to force closures. Continue reading...

Drivers have to use more costly post office or postal options because of online identity verification problemMotorists who try to renew their driving licences using recently issued passports face being forced to go to a post office and pay fees that are 54% higher than the online price. It is because of a glitch on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) website, and those with passports issued since 2016 are affected.The DVLA charges 14 for online renewals by UK passport holders who use the document to verify their identity. Continue reading...

Journalist says worst part of experience was trying to explain politician's dehumanising' remarks to fatherThe journalist Ava Evans has described the on-air comments made about her by Laurence Fox on GB News as unforgivable".Fox was suspended by the channel after the actor-turned-politician made a series of comments about the political correspondent on Tuesday, including suggesting no one would want to shag" her. Continue reading...

Data shows black people are 16 times more likely than white people to be prosecuted under the doctrine, according to CPS figuresMore than half of people prosecuted under joint enterprise are from minority ethnic backgrounds and black people are 16 times more likely than white people to be prosecuted, according to data from the Crown Prosecution Service.Under the joint enterprise doctrine, an individual can be jointly charged with the crime of another if the court decides they foresaw the other person was likely to commit that crime and intended to encourage or assist them. This has resulted in bystanders, or people involved in much lesser criminal offences, being convicted of murder or manslaughter. Continue reading...

Tensions bubble beneath the surface as free-market ultras, culture warriors and northern Tories gather in ManchesterAs the Conservative party conference gets under way this weekend, there is a pause in the seemingly relentless civil wars of recent years, as the Tory tribes gather in Manchester.But tensions continue to bubble beneath the surface; the presence of Liz Truss and enduring popularity of Boris Johnson among sections of the membership serve as reminders of dividing lines. Continue reading...

Any rollback of' levelling up commitments in north could anger red wall' voters who swung to ConservativesAs Tories flock to Manchester for their annual conference, they are looking at an even frostier welcome than usual in the northern city.Once, Manchester was at the heart of George Osborne's promised northern powerhouse" project and the end destination of the HS2 rail line. Northern voters continued to be wooed by Boris Johnson with a promise of levelling up as he sought to retain the so-called red wall" seats he won from Labour in 2019. Continue reading...

UK-based charter firm launches ludicrous' 8,166 Dubai-London route for clients who want to fly with petsEnvironmentalists have condemned a ludicrous" private jet service that transports wealthy people's dogs, which this week ran its first flight from Dubai to London.For 8,166, one way, customers were able to sit with their dogs on their laps and sip champagne as they travelled from Al Maktoum international airport to Farnborough in a Gulfstream IV-SP jet. Continue reading...

Russia's invasion has had a major impact on the bloc's security and energy policies - and even its very raison d'etreThe EU has changed. There is no turning back. We have turned out the lights behind us and there is basically only one way."The words of the Danish politician and EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a conference in May neatly reflect the mood among the Brussels elite, taken aback at their own ability to shed EU bureaucratic torpor, defend Ukraine, embrace enlargement and move closer to fulfilling Ursula von der Leyen's ambition for the EU to become a geopolitical force". Continue reading...

Election could decide whether country sticks with liberal, pro-western line or begins to lean more towards RussiaVoting has started in a knife-edge election in Slovakia that could decide whether the country sticks with its liberal, pro-western line or abandons its staunch support for neighbouring Ukraine to lean more towards Moscow.After a virulent campaign that has included physical brawls and amid a wave of online disinformation, the populist, nationalist three-time prime minister Robert Fico and his Smer-SD party were neck and neck with the newcomers Progressive Slovakia heading into the vote, with PS just ahead in two of the final four opinion polls. Continue reading...