World news | The Guardian

Defence minister to tell parliament agreement with US and UK will not limit Australia’s independence on deployment decisions

Co-convener claims other members may follow Thorpe out the door and pushes back on party room decision to support referendum

Prime minister Anthony Albanese announces team of 72 defence force personnel will assist local authorities

Turkish president will travel to epicentre amid mounting criticism of authorities’ response

Judges reject legal challenge to UK-EU trade arrangements by group of unionist leaders

Wilson to enact single, seven-minute scene on loop with 100 men to explore gender rolesRuth Wilson has called a new stage role in which she will perform the same scene repeatedly for 24 hours straight an “extraordinary, once in a lifetime experience”.The Golden Globe and Olivier award winner will star in the UK premiere of the internationally acclaimed epic The Second Woman at the Young Vic this spring. Playing Virginia, Wilson will enact a single, seven-minute scene on loop, with 100 different men performing opposite her as her lover Marty, one after the other. Most of the men are non-actors who have volunteered for the role.The Second Woman, a Young Vic & Lift co-production, produced in association with Ruth Wilson, is at the Young Vic, London, 19-20 May. Continue reading...

Zahawi’s replacement says party is in good shape, but struggles to defend remarks made by his deputy, Lee Anderson

Girl was found near Galashiels after search involving divers, a helicopter and mountain rescue teamA 53-year-old man has been charged in connection with the disappearance of an 11-year-old girl who was later found in the Scottish Borders, as police thanked the public for their “huge effort” in helping to find her.The child was reported missing in Galashiels on Sunday but was found nearby at about 9.30pm on Monday. Continue reading...

Giant teddy bear Bordesley is put in charge of Birmingham city council’s £3bn budget in Stan’s Cafe’s fun new production All Our Money“It came from a place of … what is the worst idea you could possibly have for a theatre show?” says director James Yarker, as he flicks through a heavily annotated 90-page copy of Birmingham city council’s three-year financial plan.His latest production, All Our Money, is a 50-minute exploration of the complexities of council budgets, told with the help of 6,000 gold blocks and a football mascot. Continue reading...

After internal concerns were raised over Coalition position on crediting, opposition leader says he expects no one to break ranks

Emergency services were called to Frazer Beach on Wednesday afternoon, but neither could be revived

This blog is now closed

Experts say codebreakers’ discovery is most significant about royal for more than a centuryA team of codebreakers have cracked secret coded messages in letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, in what experts have said is the most significant discovery about Mary for more than a century.Fifty-seven letters dating from 1578 to 1584, a few years before Mary Stuart was beheaded on 8 February 1587, have been deciphered. Fifty of the letters revealed scripts that were not previously known to historians. Continue reading...

Bank sided with China in denying pension payouts to people who fled crackdown, says all-party groupHSBC is complicit in human rights abuses against Hong Kong residents by siding with Chinese authorities and denying pension payouts to those who fled the authoritarian crackdown, an inquiry by peers and MPs has concluded.The report by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Hong Kong took issue with the fact that banks including HSBC – which help to manage the compulsory pension fund that all residents pay into – have bowed to local authorities and refused to recognise the documentation of tens of thousands of residents who have tried to withdraw their pensions after fleeing to the UK. Continue reading...

First and second class designs reflect monarch’s desire for continuity and will be on sale from 4 AprilThe image of King Charles III that will be used on first and second class stamps has been revealed, with Royal Mail expected to make them available for the public to buy from 4 April.The image depicts the king in profile facing to the left, known as a definitive stamp, using an adaptation of the portrait to be used on new UK coins in a tradition dating back to the creation of the Penny Black stamp for Queen Victoria in 1840. Continue reading...

With music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Joss Stone, the show based on Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller will open in autumnA musical based on Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife, with music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Joss Stone, will open in London’s West End this autumn.The bestselling novel, about an artist whose husband’s genetic disorder sends him hopping between past and future, was adapted as a film in 2009 and became a 2022 TV series that was axed after one season. The new stage production, first performed in Chester last year, is “like nothing you’ve ever seen” said Stewart, praising its illusions created by Chris Fisher whose past shows include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Continue reading...

Brisbane supreme court told accused punched victim causing him to fall and suffer head injuries that claimed his life 10 days later

The girls were too afraid to tell anyone given the former principal’s standing in the Hasidic community, Victoria’s county court hears

Government agrees to send out brochure laying out both arguments for voice to parliament after first claiming it was outdated in the internet age

Controversial Republican congressman confronted by senator and former presidential candidate on floor of HouseJoe Biden delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday but the Republican congressman George Santos still managed to grab some headlines, over an apparently tense exchange with Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah and former Republican presidential nominee.“He shouldn’t be in Congress,” Romney later told reporters. Continue reading...

Storm expected to become a cyclone on Wednesday, with potential to deliver strong winds to parts of exposed coastal areas

The resumption of trade marks an improvement in relations and comes a day after Australia-China ministerial talks

Enterprise expected to report a full-year loss for the first time since 2015, with profit before tax down 88.2% from same time last year

Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist uses smell to evoke memory and explores racism and national identity through flags

Birds stored haul of acorns over the years in Santa Rosa house’s chimney, where they spilled into a wall cavityExterminator Nick Castro was inspecting a home for mealworms when he discovered something … nuts. Tens of thousands of acorns came cascading out from behind a bedroom wall.“Unreal,” Castro posted on his company’s Facebook page. As he reached behind the wall, the little oak nuts kept spilling out. Castro – who owns Nick’s Extreme Pest Control in Santa Rosa, California – said he filled a total of eight garbage bags with 700lbs of acorns. Continue reading...

Detectives recover firearm and are said to suspect husband killed headteacher Emma Pattison and their daughterSurrey police are treating the deaths of the Epsom College headteacher, Emma Pattison, her husband and their daughter as a homicide investigation and a firearm has been recovered, the force has confirmed.Pattison, who became the college’s first female head in September, was found with her daughter Lettie, seven, and husband, George, 39, at their home in the grounds of the independent school in the early hours of Sunday. Continue reading...

Rock band to lend eight songs to the ‘world’s first heavy metal dance experience’ performed by Carlos Acosta’s Birmingham Royal Ballet in SeptemberA ballet soundtracked by the music of Black Sabbath will premiere in September, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s director Carlos Acosta has announced.Billed as “the world’s first heavy metal dance experience”, the three-act ballet will feature eight songs by the Brummie band, including Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs and the eponymous Black Sabbath, re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia – with added drums and electric guitars. The rest of the score will be newly composed, inspired by the band’s music. Continue reading...

Mechanical centrepiece of city’s 2022 Commonwealth Games will be installed permanently this summerThe mechanical bull which formed the centrepiece of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony is to be given a permanent home in the city’s main railway station.The 10-metre-high bull, known at the Raging Bull, will be installed in the atrium of Birmingham New Street station this summer, Network Rail said. Continue reading...

Waiting lists will flatline rather than fall despite being one of PM’s priorities for the year, says IFSNHS waiting lists are unlikely to fall in 2023, and the backlog is unlikely to be significantly tackled until mid-2024 despite being one of Rishi Sunak’s priorities for this year, research suggests.The NHS has struggled to increase the number of people it is treating from its waiting lists each month due to ongoing pressures from Covid-19, although there have been signs of improvement in the past month, analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found. Continue reading...

Number of trains could be cut from from 18 to 10 an hour and maximum speed of 360 km/h (224 mph) may be reducedMinisters are planning on cutting HS2 services and train speeds in an attempt to drive down the cost of the heavily delayed project, it has been reported.The government is said to be considering cutting the number of trains from 18 to 10 an hour and reducing the trains’ maximum speeds. Continue reading...

Indictment outlines alleged offences against students, which ex-head of Melbourne ultra-orthodox Jewish school denies

Relatives find baby girl tied by umbilical cord to mother who died in Monday’s massive earthquake

Man pleads guilty to manslaughter after his car hit motorcycle carrying John Williams NtwaliA Rwandan driver has been fined 1 million Rwandan francs ($920) for involuntary manslaughter over the death of a top journalist who was critical of the government.John Williams Ntwali, editor of the Chronicles newspaper, was killed on 18 January when a speeding vehicle rammed a motorcycle on which he was riding pillion. Continue reading...

UK aid charities say reports of devastation are just ‘tip of the iceberg’ while at least 35 British nationals caught up in disaster

Report on counter-extremism programme to say attention must shift to Islamist radicalisation instead of rightwing terrorismA long-awaited report on the government’s counter-extremism programme is expected to call for its focus to shift more towards Islamist terrorism instead of rightwing terrorism.Wednesday’s publication of William Shawcross’s review into Prevent follows months of delays caused by ministerial tussles over redactions and the language in the report, sources said. Continue reading...

Return tickets could be scrapped in demand-based system as part of wider reforms to ‘broken model’, says transport secretaryTrain tickets in Britain could be priced like airline seats under a demand-based system being trialled by the government as part of a wider rail shake-up.The transport secretary, Mark Harper, announced on Tuesday evening that fares on some long-distance trains run by LNER on the East Coast line will fluctuate according to availability. Continue reading...

Hollie Dance tells inquest in Chelmsford she believes 12-year-old accidentally fell from banister but cannot be sure how he diedArchie Battersbee’s mother has told an inquest into his death that she cannot be sure how her son died but that she wants lessons to be learned from the tragedy.Hollie Dance, who found her son unconscious with a ligature over his head on 7 April last year, said on Tuesday she believed her 12-year-old son accidentally fell after climbing on a banister. He died on 6 August after Dance was unsuccessful in a lengthy court battle to stop his life support being switched off. Continue reading...

PM appoints Greg Hands as Tory chair and restructures Whitehall departmentsRishi Sunak has announced a mini-reshuffle to stamp his authority on the fractured Conservative party, alongside a sweeping Whitehall restructure that created four new government departments.The prime minister promoted Greg Hands, a trade minister, to Conservative party chair tasked with running the May elections campaign, replacing Nadhim Zahawi who was sacked last week for failing to declare his tax affairs. Continue reading...

Agreement with Equality and Human Rights Commission commits firm to number of measures to protect workersMcDonald’s has signed a legally-binding pledge with the equality watchdog amid concerns over how it has handled sexual harassment complaints made by UK staff.The move came after allegations by workers at the fast-food chain’s US restaurants of sexual harassment in the workplace over several years and the company’s failure to deal with the issue. Continue reading...

Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-winning film will be transformed into a stage show featuring music from the same teamThe Oscar-winning musical La La Land is to be transformed into a stage show.The 2017 hit, which made over $470m worldwide at the box office, will be heading to Broadway, with music by Justin Hurwitz and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the same team who worked on the film. Continue reading...

Lancashire constabulary warns against using criminal damage or harassment to find missing womanPolice have urged the public not to “take the law into their own hands” in the search for Nicola Bulley, who went missing 12 days ago while walking her dog.Lancashire constabulary told amateur detectives not to abuse witnesses or attempt to break into empty or derelict buildings along the River Wyre near where she disappeared. Continue reading...

SNP politician and his wife claimed their daughter was denied a place because of her Muslim-sounding nameThe wife of Scotland’s health secretary has dropped legal action against a nursery the couple believed had discriminated against their daughter, allegedly because she had a Muslim-sounding name.Nadia El-Nakla and Humza Yousaf, one of Scotland’s most prominent Muslim politicians, had accused Little Scholars day nursery in Broughty Ferry, Dundee of refusing to give their two-year-old daughter a place while accepting children with western-sounding names. Continue reading...

Obinna Obeta’s successful transplant allegedly then inspired plot to bring man from Nigeria to donate a kidneyA doctor accused of organ trafficking was previously able to persuade an NHS hospital and the transplant regulator that he was the cousin of a man who donated him a kidney in an operation in 2021, the Old Bailey has heard.After this was successful, he trafficked a Lagos street trader to the UK in an attempt to transplant his kidney to the daughter of a powerful Nigerian politician at the same hospital, the Royal Free in London. Continue reading...

Decision on case of ex-Facebook moderator, who claims the work left him with PTSD, hailed as win for accountability of big tech in AfricaA Kenyan court has ruled that a case brought against Facebook by a former content moderator can go ahead.Daniel Motaung, who was hired as a Facebook content moderator by the tech firm’s subcontractor Sama in 2019, filed a suit against the two companies last year, alleging that he had been exposed to graphic and traumatic content at work, without adequate prior knowledge or proper psychosocial support – which he says left him with post-traumatic stress disorder. Continue reading...

Comment comes as MPs grill Sharp about role in facilitating loan for Boris Johnson

Many party MPs worry that trenchant views of ‘30p Lee’ mean his appointment will end badly

PC Jorden Brown is alleged to have committed offences between November 2018 and February 2019A serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with rape and three counts of actual bodily harm.PC Jorden Brown, attached to the central east command unit, is alleged to have committed the offences between November 2018 and February 2019. Continue reading...

Johnson’s administration made promises over Northern Ireland deal that it knew were unworkable, former PM tells MPs

Britons will be able to fix monthly home loan costs at level below Bank of England base rateFive-year fixed-rate mortgages priced at below 4% are back on sale for the first time since just after the disastrous autumn mini-budget.HSBC has repriced its range and introduced a new five-year fix at 3.99% for customers remortgaging who are looking to borrow up to 60% of the property’s value. It means people are able to fix their monthly home loan costs at a level below the Bank of England base rate, which rose to 4% last Thursday. Continue reading...

Alun Titford convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence over 16-year-old’s death in October 2020A man has been found guilty of killing his disabled daughter by allowing her to become fatally obese during the first Covid lockdown.Alun Titford, 45, was convicted by a jury of manslaughter by gross negligence after the death of his “fiercely independent” and “funny” 16-year-old daughter, Kaylea. Continue reading...