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Sentence to be handed down in NSW supreme court 13 weeks after judge found Dawson guilty of murder

Administration program to cancel billions of dollars of debt was blocked by lower court last monthThe US supreme court on Thursday agreed to hear Joe Biden’s attempt to reinstate his plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt after it was blocked by a lower court in a challenge by six states that have accused his administration of exceeding its authority.The justices deferred taking action on the president’s request to lift an injunction issued on 14 November by the St Louis-based eighth US circuit court of appeals blocking the program, but said in a brief order that they would hear oral arguments in the case in their session that runs from late February to early March. Continue reading...

Molten rock from Mauna Loa could damage the Big Island’s transportation infrastructure – and no one can stop itRivers of glowing lava oozing from the world’s largest volcano could swallow the main highway linking the east and west coasts of Hawaii’s Big Island as early as this weekend, and there’s nothing humans can do to stop it, experts said.Mauna Loa awoke from its 38-year slumber on Sunday, spewing volcanic ash and debris into the sky. The molten rock is drawing thousands of awestruck viewers to Route 200 as it passes near Hawaii Volcanoes national park, and they endure a thick smell of volcanic gases and sulfur to watch the wide stream of lava creep closer. Continue reading...

Director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold is expected to make a statement on Friday morning

The outgoing leader of the SNP’s Westminster group had a turbulent time recently with his own MPsAfter five years in Westminster, Ian Blackford will be remembered for his verbose yet pugnacious speeches in the Commons and the weekly chorus of loud groans he prompted from Conservative MPs at prime ministers’ questions.Despite his dogged efforts to hold a series of Tory prime ministers to account – going toe-to-toe with Boris Johnson in a way that the more cautious Keir Starmer never felt able – the outgoing SNP leader has had a turbulent time with his own MPs, much of it self-inflicted. Continue reading...

Beckmann painted work in Amsterdam after fleeing Nazi Germany and shows him as younger man with enigmatic smileA rare and remarkable self-portrait by the 20th-century German expressionist Max Beckmann has sold in Berlin for €20m (£17m), breaking the record for a work of art sold at auction in Germany.The striking Selbstbildnis gelb-rosa (Self-portrait Yellow-Pink) was painted by Beckmann during his wartime exile in Amsterdam after he fled Nazi Germany. The identity of its new owner was not immediately available. With fees and other charges, the cost to the buyer was €23.2m. Continue reading...

From Manchester to London, three people tell of stress, fear and eviction as cost of private renting rockets• Soaring rents making life ‘unaffordable’ for private UK tenants£8,000 a year; £300 a month; 60%. These are just some of the rent rises demanded from private tenants as winter approaches. The alternative can be eviction, sofa surfing or scrambling in an overheated market for another place. With homelessness the fear, it is extremely stressful.The already expensive housing markets of London and the south-east are worst affected but it is a national problem. In Manchester Clara Graziani, 27, a customer services worker, was paying £695 a month on a city centre flat until she was served with an eviction notice in September. Her landlord used the “no fault eviction” process the government has repeatedly pledged to abolish, but still hasn’t. Graziani had agreed to pay 8% extra, but then, without explanation, she was evicted. Continue reading...

‘It is a relic from the past’: strong opposition to oath from three political parties of French-speaking provinceQuebec’s premier, François Legault, said that his government would introduce legislation next week to end elected officials’ required oath to Britain’s King Charles, as pressure mounts in the Canadian province to cut such ties with the monarchy.Fresh legislation from the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) follows a separate bill introduced on Thursday by the left-leaning Québec Solidaire party that would allow elected officials to just take an oath to the people. of Quebec. Continue reading...

Councillors to use extra £3m expected to be raised by the move to tackle area’s ‘immoral’ homelessness crisisSecond-home owners in north Wales will have to pay a 150% council tax premium to tackle the area’s spiralling and “immoral” homelessness crisis.Councillors in Gwynedd agreed to raise the premium from its current 100% level – so already twice what permanent residents pay – and use the extra £3m it believes it will raise to provide more accommodation for people who are struggling to find a home. Continue reading...

Labor’s workplace reforms – the biggest for decades – go through despite attempts by Michaelia Cash to thwart its passage

Progress made with at least 60 MPs, says source, as levelling up secretary considers amendments to bill

Coffin was earlier driven through Shanghai in choreographed scene contrasting with recent protestsThe body of the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin has arrived in Beijing after being driven through the streets of Shanghai in a highly choreographed scene contrasting sharply with protests this week calling for the removal of the Communist party.China Central Television in its main evening news broadcast on Thursday showed footage of a hearse carrying Jiang’s body through Shanghai, while people dressed in black – likely to have been government employees – lined the streets and bowed their heads in silence. Continue reading...

Student arrested five months after posting comment about Aisha BuhariNigeria has charged a student with “criminal defamation” over a tweet he posted about the physical appearance of the country’s first lady.Aminu Adamu was arrested at his university in northern Jigawa state on 18 November and transferred to the capital, Abuja, five months after his online post about Aisha Buhari, the president’s wife. Continue reading...

Baltic state has held out against cap set at level it believes would have no impact on Putin’s war machine

UK high street banks are accused of not passing on benefits of money market movements to savers and borrowersBig high street banks stand accused of failing to pass on to customers the recent movements in the money markets that should have improved mortgage and savings rates.Some lenders are offering fixed-rate mortgage deals that are 50%-60% more expensive than those they were selling three months ago – despite the fact the money market “swap rates” that largely determine the pricing of new fixed deals have fallen sharply since the highs which followed Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget. Continue reading...

Status lost after BBC film and open letter from workers alleging ‘culture of fear’ at self-styled ‘punk brewery’The controversial beer brand BrewDog has lost its status as a B Corp less than two years after joining the scheme, which offers certification of a company’s ethical commitment to the environment, community and staff.The company, which was recently called hypocritical for running a World Cup ad campaign highlighting Qatar’s poor human rights record despite being criticised by the Unite Hospitality union for the treatment of its own workers, achieved B Corp status last February. Continue reading...

Fashion retailer joins Joules founder in last-minute £41m deal, but 24 stores will closeNext has teamed up with the founder of the collapsed fashion chain Joules to rescue it from administration in a £41m deal that will save about 100 shops and 1,450 jobs.Sources said Next placed a last-minute bid in the early hours of Thursday morning, trumping one placed by South Africa’s Foschini Group, the owner of Hobbs and Whistles. Marks & Spencer and Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group are also thought to have taken an interest in Joules, which is best known for its jackets and patterned wellington boots.CarmarthenCheltenhamChichesterEdinburghExeterGatesheadLyme RegisNewburyNorthcote Road, south LondonOxfordPeak Village, DerbyshirePeterboroughReigateSalcombe Fore StreetSherborneSouthwold Little JouleSt DavidsWaterloo station, LondonWatford Continue reading...

Charity founder Ngozi Fulani felt violated after Lady Susan Hussey’s ‘deeply regrettable comments’. Here’s whyThe royal family has been embroiled in another racism scandal following the resignation of Lady Susan Hussey after making “unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments” to a black charity boss during a Buckingham Palace reception.Ngozi Fulani, the founder of the charity Sistah Space, said Hussey left her feeling violated after she allegedly took her lock and moved it away from her badge, then repeatedly questioned her about where she “really came from”. Continue reading...

Calls from across communications, health, education and rail sectors come as dispute at Royal Mail escalatesUnion leaders across the communications, rail, health and education sectors have said only fair pay and job security can end the UK’s waves of strike action amid a fresh war of words in the bitter dispute at Royal Mail.Dave Ward, the secretary general of the Communication Workers Union, which is midway through a series of strikes running up to Christmas, accused bosses of “goading” members and creating “a psychological attack” on postal workers. Continue reading...

The moderate Pesutto and conservative Brad Battin will vie to lead the opposition after state election loss

Farha, debut film of Jordanian film-maker, depicts Zionist atrocities against Palestinians during Nakba conflictA Netflix film depicting Zionist forces murdering a Palestinian family during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has been condemned by Israeli officials as “creating a false narrative”.Farha, the debut of the Jordanian film-maker Darin Sallam, has been shown at several film festivals around the world since its release last year, and is Jordan’s Oscars entry for 2023. It is due to begin streaming to a global audience on the online entertainment service on Thursday. Continue reading...

The grocery is pressuring part-time employees to add work hours, a constraint on some with parenting or school commitmentsTrader Joe’s, a specialty grocery chain with about 500 locations in the US and 50,000 employees, is rolling out new, unofficial policies at stores across the US starting in January 2023, according to workers, that will mandate part-time workers work a minimum of three days a week to maintain their employment with the company.A Trader Joe’s worker in the north-east US who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation criticized the changes. The employee learned of the policy in August because they had planned to reduce their work days to one or two days a week to have time to start their own business and had already seen a co-worker affected by it for trying to return from a maternity leave to a reduced schedule. Continue reading...

Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”. Continue reading...

Climate change minister tells parliament official projection of 40% cut does not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments

The ruangrupa collective’s last show was removed from key German exhibition for caricatures of JewsAn Indonesian collective that became embroiled in an antisemitism row earlier this year has taken the No 1 spot in the annual ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations.The ruangrupa group, founded in Jakarta in 2000, are the first artists from Asia to top the ArtReview Power 100. Their position “reflects the growing influence of the global south and the move towards greater diversity in the art world,” ArtReview said. Continue reading...

Fans gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square for Australia’s first three games but there has not been a major live site in Sydney

Cost of food imported from EU rose because of extra red tape, with poorest most affectedBrexit added almost £6bn to UK food bills in the two years to the end of 2021, affecting poorest households the most, research has found.The cost of food imported from the EU shot up because of extra red tape, adding £210 to the average household food bills over 2020 and 2021, London School of Economics (LSE) researchers discovered. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Musical and children’s play are among vast archive explored in upcoming film about comedic geniusA musical and a children’s play written by Spike Milligan are among unmade scripts within a vast archive to which film-makers have been given unprecedented access for a forthcoming documentary on the comic genius.Seb Barfield, the producer-director of Spike Milligan: The Unseen Archive, was astonished to find entire shows, sketches and poems among hundreds of papers and reels of footage. Continue reading...

Federal court hears no member of the Murdoch family has publicly repudiated the news channel’s claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 US election

Zoo says investigation into ‘lion incident’ continues with specialist forensic engineer examining failure of ‘complex mesh fencing system’

‘Gay has led The Age through two incredibly challenging and exhilarating years covering the story of a lifetime,’ masthead owner Nine Entertainment saysThe editor of the Age, Gay Alcorn, has resigned from her position after two years to take care of her husband, who is battling a serious health problem.On Thursday, the Age and Sydney Morning Herald executive editor, Tory Maguire, announced Alcorn would be stepping down from the editorship of the 186-year-old Melbourne masthead now owned by Nine Entertainment.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

Medical experts had criticised video-sharing app for its popular #sunburnchallenge hashtagSocial media giant TikTok has announced it will actively ban videos that encourage tanning and add educational content to its platform after alarm from Australian medical experts over the platform’s sharing of pro-tanning material.In September, Melanoma Institute Australia co-medical directors Prof Georgina Long and Prof Richard Scolyer, speaking at the National Press Club, took issue with the video-sharing app for its popular #sunburnchallenge hashtag. Continue reading...

Medibank confirms it may be the full trove of hundreds of thousands of customers’ private records that were stolen from the health insurer

NSW ordered to pay damages after police maliciously pursued Spedding while investigating Tyrrell’s disappearance in September 2014

Deceased man was attacking his mother with a stick when constable Emmanuel Andrew first opened fire

Blast at Kyiv’s embassy in Madrid injures staff member; nine people killed in fires to heat homes in Ukraine

Albanese government chooses not to provide any public funding for yes or no campaigns on the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

Neil Finn, Haim, Questlove, the Doors and Fleetwood Mac bandmates Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood among those to remember a ‘beautiful presence’

A new report calls for targeted help for those who will no longer qualify from changes next springMore than 7 million people who no longer qualify for energy support from next spring face years in fuel poverty if average heat and light bills remain at £3,000, according to a report calling for more targeted help.In his November budget the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the government’s energy price guarantee (EPG) would rise from April to £3,000 a year for the typical home, and the £400 help paid to all households this winter – regardless of income – would not be repeated. Continue reading...

Partner of man whose complaint led to abatement notice against Manchester music venue testifies to being driven out of their homeThe partner of the man whose noise complaint against Manchester’s famous Night & Day music venue could see it close has told a court he has become a “recluse” and lost 30kg due to stress.Speaking at Manchester magistrates court on Wednesday, he said the couple had moved out in May as living near to the venue was not sustainable, due to the noise and fears for their safety after the complaint. Continue reading...

Announcements ordered the removal of ‘control orders’ and to designate areas as low riskAuthorities have abruptly lifted Covid restrictions in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, where protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as police searched for demonstrators in other cities and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.After days of extraordinary protests in the country that also prompted international demonstrations in solidarity, the US and Canada urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns. Continue reading...

Vote was triggered by Labour MP’s resignation and is first byelection under current prime ministerThe first Westminster byelection since the resignation of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and the financial fallout from the mini-budget takes place on Thursday.Polls are set to close at 10pm in the City of Chester in the first electoral test for Rishi Sunak. Continue reading...

Former lady-in-waiting stepped down from palace role after incident in which she asked guest where she ‘really came from’

Foreign Office targets 22 officials, including Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister responsible for troop supplies

Documents show Thurrock failed to act despite being cautioned about scale and risky nature of investmentsThe Tory-led Thurrock council, which is on the brink of bankruptcy after losing hundreds of millions of pounds on failed commercial investments, repeatedly ignored warnings from financial experts over the “unprecedented risks” it was taking with public money, it has emerged.According to documents obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), Thurrock’s top finance official failed to act despite being cautioned about the scale, speed and risky nature of the council’s investments. Continue reading...

Penelope Schofield expresses ‘deep regret’ that families of 11 men killed in 2015 disaster have had to wait so longA coroner has apologised to the families of 11 men who were killed in the Shoreham airshow tragedy for having to wait so long for an inquest into their deaths to resume.The West Sussex senior coroner, Penelope Schofield, expressed her “deepest regret” that delays to the inquest had added to the ordeal endured by relatives of those who died. Continue reading...

Leaked evidence shows trail of missed opportunities to improve test-and-trace regime in early days of pandemicPublic health leaders were slow to act on repeated warnings over Christmas 2020 that contact tracing and isolation should be triggered immediately after a positive lateral flow test result, leaked evidence to the Covid inquiry shows.A scathing “lessons learned” document written by Dr Achim Wolf, a senior test and trace official, and submitted to the inquiry, gives his account of a trail of missed opportunities to improve the NHS test-and-trace regime in the first winter and spring of the pandemic – before vaccines were available. Continue reading...

PM Anthony Albanese leads the applause for the Socceroos, who were also cheered on by huge crowds in Melbourne and SydneyAustralia’s historic World Cup win over Denmark sparked wild celebrations across the country in the early hours of the morning as the team progressed to the knockout stages of the finals for only the second time.Thousands of fans had gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to watch the match in the middle of the night and erupted in ecstasy when Mathew Leckie scored to put them into the lead after an hour. Continue reading...

GMB union, announcing vote in favour of strikes across nine trusts, says action as much about patient safety as pay

State attempts to push through plans to shut hundreds of factory farms to cut nitrogen oxide emissionsThe Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail. Continue reading...