World news | The Guardian

Police investigating if attacks linked, citing similarities as gunmen in both cases said to have fired at people ‘randomly’Four people have been killed and eight wounded in a bar in eastern South Africa after two men fired indiscriminately at customers, police said, on the same night as a bar shooting in Soweto left 15 dead.Police were trying to verify if the attacks were linked, they said, noting their similarity. Continue reading...

Research paints bleak picture in which huge numbers go undiagnosed and seriously ill people do not receive specialist carePeople with depression are “stagnating” in the UK healthcare system, according to research that suggests many wait years to be diagnosed and then often receive suboptimal treatment.The research, led by scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, aimed to assess how real-world care for depression compared with best practice and painted a bleak picture that sees huge numbers go undiagnosed and those with very serious illness are not referred on for specialist care quickly enough. Continue reading...

Foreign secretary and newly-appointed Foreign Office minister reveal bids to replace Boris Johnson as Tory leaderSajid Javid, who resigned as health secretary five days ago, is on BBC’s Sunday Morning discussing his leadership bid.

Premier Dominic Perrottet announces change after costly plans to install new flagpole scrapped

Anneliese Dodds asks for clarity on which contenders have held tax status after Zahawi revelationsThe Labour chair, Anneliese Dodds, has written to her Conservative counterpart to seek assurances that all Tory leadership candidates will reveal if they have ever had non-dom tax status or used arrangements such as offshore holdings or stakes in shell companies.After revelations on Saturday about the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, the letter also requests information as to whether any of the would-be successors to Boris Johnson have been investigated over their financial affairs or had officials raise concerns about these. Continue reading...

Sources say 1922 Committee may raise threshold of supporters required to 25 to narrow down crowded fieldConservative leadership hopefuls face a bruising week in which they must quickly scramble for supporters in what looks likely to be a dramatically accelerated contest to find Boris Johnson’s successor.After an acrimonious weekend in which several MPs launched their plans to cut tax, those currently vying to be prime minister are likely to be whittled down to a final two in about a week. Continue reading...

Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Billie Jean King among those celebrating former champion as ‘simply the best’Tennis stars have bid an emotional farewell to Sue Barker as she said she wished she could front the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage for another three decades.

More than 3,000 firefighters battle blazes as EU offers emergency help and temperatures could hit 43CWildfires in Portugal have left 29 people injured as thousands of firefighters and dozens of aircraft battle the blazes.Authorities said 12 firefighters and 17 civilians required medical treatment for minor injuries, as reported by the Portuguese state broadcaster RTP and local media. Continue reading...

Paralympian Jonnie Peacock had publicly asked to be removed from video, which also originally featured Oscar Pistorius

Australia Institute survey finds Coalition’s treatment of women seen as ‘weakness’ by two-thirds of voters

Hottest UK temperature on Sunday was 29.5C and warm air from France and Spain could push it even higherBritons will face sweltering conditions this week when a heatwave could bring highs of up to 33C, and forecasters are warning that there could be a new UK record temperature set.On Sunday, the hottest temperature recorded in the UK, according to the Met Office, was 29.5C in Wisley, Surrey. Continue reading...

Outcomes following votes at eight train companies expected on Monday as talks with RMT resumeThe national rail dispute will reach a critical juncture on Monday with the results of ballots for industrial action by drivers at eight train companies, as talks resume with the biggest rail union to head off more strikes.The votes, called by Aslef, could lead to action with even more impact than during last month’s strikes by 40,000 RMT workers – when the absence in particular of signallers stopped most services in the UK – particularly if it coincides with action by Network Rail managers, whose ballot by the TSSA (Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association) will also be announced on Monday. Continue reading...

Son announces death of broadcaster, who presented on BBC current affairs programme from 1969 to 1977The TV presenter Michael Barratt, best known for his work on BBC’s Nationwide, has died aged 94, his family have announced.A statement released on Sunday by Barratt’s son Olly read: “We’re very sad to report that our lovely dad/husband/Mike/Michael Barratt died this morning. Continue reading...

Staff absences adding to workforce problems caused by Brexit, pension disputes and exhaustion, says expert

Union organisation criticises Tory ‘litany of failures on workers’ rights’ five years on from Taylor reviewThe Trades Union Congress has criticised the Conservative party for “a litany of failures on workers’ rights” as it published analysis showing a rise in insecure jobs in the five years since the government pledged to make work in the UK fairer.At least 3.7 million people in Britain are in insecure jobs, up from 3.6m in 2021, out of a total workforce of 34 million, according to analysis of government data by the TUC. That compares to 3.2 million in late 2016, before the publication of the Taylor review, a landmark government-backed report on work in the UK. Continue reading...

More than 24 people thought to be trapped in rubble of five-storey block in town of Chasiv Yar

Country’s film industry makes 20 horrors in last six years, as directors channel the vampires and banshees of traditional talesA century after Bram Stoker introduced Dracula to the world, Irish storytellers are again conjuring vampires – as well as zombies, ghosts, changelings and grisly, mysterious diseases – and this time on the big screen.Young film directors are channelling Ireland’s dark folklore and contemporary social ills into a wave of horror films that are finding mainstream audiences overseas. Continue reading...

Fergus Linehan calls for visa-free travel for British artists to solve logistical problems of touringThe outgoing director of the Edinburgh festival has called for the UK’s visa and exports rules to be greatly simplified to allow musicians and artists to travel overseas far more smoothly.Fergus Linehan, who directs his last international festival next month, said the UK’s post-Brexit visa rules had been a “disaster” for the arts and for artists by stifling collaboration and making it harder for British artists to tour abroad. Continue reading...

New supply chief Jonathan Mills starts drafting plans to safeguard winter supplies amid war in UkraineHe is the man charged with keeping the lights on this winter. A seasoned civil servant, Jonathan Mills was last month named director general for energy supply in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.In a blog entitled: “What do policymakers do all day?” – a nod to the children’s author Richard Scarry - he set out his approach to working in government earlier this year. “The way that I now think of a policy professional is as an ‘orchestrator’,” he said. Mills, who previously oversaw labour market policy, and before that electricity market reform, now faces the orchestration job of his life. Continue reading...

Exit polls show LDP retaining power with comfortable election victory as country mournsJapan’s ruling party has won a comfortable victory in elections overshadowed by the assassination of the former prime minister, Shinzo Abe.Exit polls showed that the Liberal Democratic party (LDP), which Abe led until he resigned in 2020, had secured more than half the 125 seats being contested in the 248-seat upper house. Continue reading...

South African police investigate reports group of men arrived in taxi and opened fire on patronsGunmen used automatic rifles and powerful handguns to kill 15 people and injure a further eight in a mass shooting at a tavern in Johannesburg’s Soweto township in the early hours of Sunday.The attack in the Nomzamo informal settlement occurred shortly after midnight when a group of men arrived in a Toyota minibus and entered the bar, neighbours told the Guardian. Continue reading...

Former foreign and health secretary attempts to broaden his appeal through alliance with McVey

New edition of Cambridge Latin Course to include more prominent female characters and better reflect empire’s ethnic mixA popular Latin course used to teach generations of British schoolchildren has undergone its biggest overhaul in 50 years to include more prominent female characters and better reflect ethnic diversity in the Roman world.A fifth edition of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), a mainstay of mainly private schools since the 1970s, is being published later this month, in response to concerns from teachers, academics and students about the representation of women, minorities and enslaved people in earlier versions. Continue reading...

Actor talks of time in Paris before she became highly paid star when she was asked to carry a suitcaseBefore she was a blockbusting Hollywood actor and before she was a “clean” wine entrepreneur, Cameron Diaz may have been an unwitting drug mule, she has revealed.Diaz has told the story of when, as young woman starting out in the world, she moved to Paris to pursue a modelling career. Continue reading...

President says it will not be attending forum because of failure to address concerns of Micronesian countriesThe key diplomatic body in the Pacific has been dealt a devastating blow on the eve of its first in-person meeting since the pandemic, as Kiribati announced it would be withdrawing from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).The Pacific has become a site of intense geostrategic competition, as a result of increased interest from China, and Kiribati’s withdrawal will weaken the forum at a time when Pacific regionalism in the face of fierce geopolitical attention has never been more important. Continue reading...

Pioneering female aviators delivered planes wherever they were needed in the second world war – armed with just a notebookThey flew together, died together, and are buried side by side. First officer Dora Lang and Flight Engineer Janice Harrington were killed on 2 March 1944 while delivering a de Havilland Mosquito Mk VI plane to an airfield in Hampshire. Their plane stalled as it approached the landing strip, and they crashed.This is just one of the untold stories of the heroic young women who, with minimal training, flew thousands of aircraft around the country and risked their lives to keep British planes in the air during the second world war. Now, the numerous achievements of these women – and the remarkable courage they showed, often before resuming their roles as housewives in postwar Britain – will be celebrated for the first time in a forthcoming exhibition at Biggin Hill Memorial Museum. Continue reading...

Talented musician, 17, stuck in Russian occupied area after British government changes policy on travel rules

Campaigners want prime minister to advance compensation payments to those infected without delayCampaigners are to hand-deliver a letter to Boris Johnson on Monday urging him to deliver immediate interim payments to victims of the contaminated blood scandal before more of them die.The delegation, including people from all four UK home nations, want the prime minister to implement without delay the recommendation for interim compensation made by Sir Robert Francis QC in his government-commissioned report. Continue reading...

After the landmark tribunal ruling in her favour last week, Maya Forstater reveals the toll the case took – and explains why it was worth itA full 48 hours after she received the final judgment in her long-running employment tribunal, Maya Forstater still looks a little dazed. It is, she admits, difficult to believe that she is now free to get on with the rest of her life.“I am very happy,” she says. “I do feel vindicated. The tribunal found that I was a victim of discrimination, and not a perpetrator, which is the story that has been told about me for the past three years. But it is weird, too. This case took on a life of its own a long time ago. It is both about me, and not about me. The implications of the judgment are going to have a huge impact. The most important thing I ever did, it seems, was to lose my job.” Continue reading...

The PM’s frivolous style won’t be missed in the EU, but his serious side emerged on UkraineBoris Johnson’s supporters last week championed his legacy as a bullish enforcer of the British people’s will against European technocrats.The reality of his diplomatic record over six years in office, first at the foreign office and then at 10 Downing Street, is rather different. Negotiators in Brussels found the old Etonian more malleable than they had expected. Continue reading...

Officers are sharing racist content online, with some wearing the ‘thin blue line’ avatar, associated with white nationalism among US policePolice forces in the UK and across Europe are suffering from a growing “culture of extremism”, according to a report that warns of an increase in officers sharing racist and far-right content online. The report, by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), says UK policing has a growing extremist problem, and highlights issues across Europe. In France, 81% of gendarmes declared they would vote for far-right politician Marine Le Pen.In France, Belgium, Germany and Hungary former high-ranking police officers have become extreme-right mayoral and parliamentary candidates. Continue reading...

In true blue constituency in the heart of the fens, residents give Johnson credit for Brexit and stance on war in UkraineSpalding is the heart of the Fens and the soul of Toryland. This Lincolnshire town is among the safest Conservative seats in the UK – the constituency of South Holland and The Deepings returned its MP, Sir John Hayes, with 75.9% of the vote in 2019.So the disappointment expressed by Conservative-supporting townsfolk in Spalding at the decision to cut short Boris Johnson’s premiership should ring alarm bells for his successors. If Johnson is looking for a country retreat after he hands back the keys to Chequers, he’ll find an enthusiastic welcome here. Less so his parliamentary colleagues. Continue reading...

PM’s repeated flouting of uncodified rules highlights the need for a trustworthy, future-proofed systemIn keeping with his entire tenure in No 10, Boris Johnson’s departure from the premiership is proving a test of the UK constitution’s heavy reliance on convention and principle. His final weeks or months in the job provide yet more questions about what the UK does with its constitution in the post-Johnson era.Before the 2010 general election, the House of Commons justice committee met constitutional experts and the then cabinet secretary, all to discuss whether the UK needed to set out rules for any “caretaker government”. The worry then was if the general election produced a hung parliament it could take time before a government was formed, and the rules for any interim government should be set out in advance. Though there were some principles and precedents about what should and should not happen, it wasn’t explicitly set out anywhere. Continue reading...

Heat-health alert issued for south and east of England, while South West Water appeals to customers to conserve waterHealth warnings have been issued about this week’s heatwave, which is expected to bring the hottest day of the year, with prolonged temperatures higher than in the Greek islands, and intensify pressure on water supplies.Parents were advised to keep their children out of the sun this week, while a water company revealed that it was already looking at ways to avert introducing water restrictions for the first time since the relentless heatwave of 1976. Continue reading...

Susan Sullivan’s hospital records suggest she was denied potentially life-saving treatment because of her disability. Now her family are demanding answersWhen Susan Sullivan died from Covid-19, her parents’ world fell quiet.She would no longer burst into her dad’s room at dawn to say: “Morning, chief! Sun’s shining!” And when songs would play by Abba, Queen or Kylie, she was no longer there to blast out the words. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak, the ex neighbour from No 11, is off to a strong start … but bad blood seems likely, whoever moves in at No 10Shortly after Boris Johnson struggled through prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, as the list of resignations from his government grew, a senior Tory MP sat down in a quiet corner of the House of Commons and agonised alone over what to do.He had been loyal to Johnson until then but could see the way the wind was blowing. “I really don’t know,” he said, grimacing and shaking his head when asked where he stood on the great question of the moment. “I know we can’t go on like this. But I can’t think of anything worse right now than a leadership contest.” Continue reading...

Senior Tories hit out at ‘disgraceful’ promotion of Sarah Dines, who has been fiercely criticised for her handling of groping claimsAnger is growing among senior Conservatives over the promotion of an MP criticised for her alleged handling of groping claims made against the former deputy chief whip, Chris Pincher.One senior Tory said the appointment of Sarah Dines as a justice and home office minister was an “absolutely disgraceful decision”. Dines, who had been an assistant whip, has been accused by one of Pincher’s alleged victims of asking him if he was gay. According to an account from one of the complainants, she is alleged to have said the fact he was gay “doesn’t make it straightforward”. Continue reading...

Police pledge thorough investigation into security flaws as polls open for upper house elections amid increased police presencePolice in Japan have admitted there were “problems” with security for Shinzo Abe, as voters went to the polls for upper house elections two days after the former prime minister was assassinated on the campaign trail.The head of police in the Nara region where Abe was killed admitted on Saturday that there were “undeniable” flaws in security for the former leader. Continue reading...

During an Instagram chat, the two tennis stars agreed to go for a meal after the grand slam final with the winner footing the bill

Soaring cost of produce in Australia has ‘exacerbated health inequality’ and leads researchers to call for farmers to be subsidised

Ottowa defies Ukraine’s objections to return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline, saying it needs to support Europe’s access to ‘reliable and affordable energy’

David Shoebridge reveals suite of amendments including budgetary independence and lowering bar to investigations

From Monday, access will also be expanded to over 50s and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over 30 with two or more risk factors

Canada grants sanctions exemption to let Russian turbine part for Nord Stream 1 pipeline return to Germany; Zelenskiy sacks host of ambassadors

Ruling on an attack on a nursing home early in the conflict, UN says no war crimes committed but both sides partially responsible

String of candidates announced on Saturday including Kemi Badenoch, Liz Truss, Grant Shapps and Nadhim ZahawiTory MP Rehman Chishti has confirmed he is “actively considering” running for leader.

Warning of ‘huge battle’ as Ukrainian armed forces plan counteroffensive in the Russian-occupied territories

Special constable Paul Hoile, 40, was arrested on Wednesday after incident in ShropshireA serving Metropolitan police officer has appeared in court charged with rape after an incident near Newport, Shropshire.Special constable Paul Hoile, 40, based in the force’s north-west command unit, was arrested in Benfleet, Essex, at about 10.30pm on Wednesday on suspicion of rape and was charged on Friday. Continue reading...

Want to get your hands on some baggies? Then head for one of the many new shops selling ‘curated’ retro clothingOn the face of it, 194 Local looks like any other secondhand shop in London’s Brick Lane. The graffiti covered shutters are down and the shopfront is understated. But as soon as it opens at 11am, the store is packed with stylishly dressed young people. The queue for the changing cubicle is long and the shop assistant is inundated with questions.What’s everyone there for? To get their hands on the latest vintage military overpants, a pair of £98 baggy trousers that are right on trend for men and women. Within minutes, most sizes have sold out. Continue reading...