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Magistrate dismisses application for woman’s charges of assault and intimidation to be dealt with under Mental Health Act

Caderyn Neville has made headlines but the selection of Quade Cooper is key to unlocking the team’s attacking mojoA golden oldie debutante, a front row firebrand, the return of the Rising Sun triangle, a dirty dozen Brumbies but no Tongan Thor and just one Red. Dave Rennie’s 23-man Wallabies squad for the first Test against England on Saturday is a tough, fast, freewheeling outfit designed to run England ragged, snap Eddie Jones’s eight-game winning streak and reverse England’s 3-0 whitewash of 2016.Brumbies lock Caderyn Neville has caught the headlines, set to debut at age 33 after being part of national squads since 2012. The 120kg, 2.02-metre tall journeyman who represented Australia in rowing at the Youth Olympics in 2006 and played his first game of rugby at age 21 has been named in the run-on side at last, after being overlooked by four Wallabies coaches across the past decade. Continue reading...

The review into the rules was ordered by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle in NovemberMPs should not be allowed to bring babies into the House of Commons chamber during debates, a cross-party review has recommended after mounting “confusion” about the rules.The procedure committee report was ordered amid an outcry over Labour backbencher Stella Creasy being told she could no longer bring her newborn son while making statements or asking questions in parliament. Continue reading...

Vacancies blamed on ticketholders wining and dining and technical issues with re-saleSwathes of empty seats on Wimbledon’s Centre Court have been blamed on hospitality guests wining and dining rather than watching the tennis.Fans unable to find Centre Court tickets have complained about the large number of empty seats at key matches this week – including those of Emma Raducanu and Andy Murray on Wednesday. Continue reading...

New minister for territories, Kristy McBain, says Labor is seeking to bring on bill in first week of parliament in July

Investigation into allegations made about duchess will stay private due to ‘confidentiality’ obligationsA Buckingham Palace investigation into the handling of bullying allegations made by staff against the Duchess of Sussex will not be published due to “confidentiality” obligations, a senior palace source has said.The independent review was announced in March 2021 to see what “lessons could be learned” after it was alleged Meghan had driven out two personal assistants and “humiliated” staff on several occasions. Continue reading...

Outsourcing accelerated by Lansley’s shakeup in 2012 linked to drop in care quality in landmark reviewThe privatisation of NHS care accelerated by Tory policies a decade ago has corresponded with a decline in quality and “significantly increased” rates of death from treatable causes, the first study of its kind says.The hugely controversial shakeup of the health service in England in 2012 by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, forced local health bodies to put contracts for services out to tender. Continue reading...

Attacks on the press have increased 85% in the three years since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took powerYet another Mexican reporter has been shot to death, bringing to 12 the number of journalists killed this year in the country, one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers.Antonio de la Cruz, 47, was shot on Wednesday as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him. Continue reading...

The move signals the initial stages of a public health concern as 306 cases of the virus have been recorded in the USThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has activated an emergency operations unit for monkeypox that signals the initial stages of a public health concern.The Emergency Operations Center (EOC), was activated on Tuesday to boost operational support for addressing a monkeypox outbreak. Continue reading...

EU chief says UK and EU are ‘natural allies’ against Russian aggression and repeats criticism of Northern Ireland protocol billA senior EU official has urged Boris Johnson’s government to move on from Brexit and work with the bloc in the face of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission’s vice-president who is in charge of UK relations, repeated his criticism of the government’s “illegal” plan to rip up parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, two days after the bill cleared its first hurdle in the House of Commons. Continue reading...

Nick Watt told court he was intimidated by protesters at anti-lockdown rally in LondonA BBC journalist said he felt “very scared” and “shaken” as he was chased by a mob of anti-vaxxers in London last year.Anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters, who had been attending at rally in central London, called Nick Watt a “traitor” and shouted in his face, Westminster magistrates court heard on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Stricter CCGs told patients that they have to attain a certain body mass index before surgeryThe number of knee replacement operations carried out has dropped in regions of England with restrictions on surgery for overweight patients, with people in more deprived areas worst affected, researchers have found.Patients needing surgery but unable to lose weight are being denied surgery that could ease pain and increase mobility, the team from the University of Bristol said. Continue reading...

Footage shows Edwin Afriyie standing with arms folded despite officers saying he was in ‘fighting stance’Police officers lied in statements to justify Tasering a black social worker who was posing no threat, the high court has been told.Edwin Afriyie, 36, had his arms folded and was standing apart from officers when he was Tasered by City of London police after a road traffic stop, body-worn video played in court shows. Continue reading...

Negative views of China at highest level in years in many of the 19 countries that took part in surveyConcerns about China’s policies on human rights have led to negative views towards the world’s most populous nation, a Pew public opinion survey has found.Negative views of China remain at or near historic highs in many of the 19 countries polled in this year’s survey, which spoke to people in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. The findings are largely consistent with Pew’s previous study in 2020, but with some countries now reporting even more unfavourable views of China. Continue reading...

Exclusive: former minister will spend 80 hours a year chairing advisory board of RTC EducationGavin Williamson has taken a £50,000-a-year second job as an adviser to a firm that runs private schools, university courses and education investments – less than a year after leaving the role of education secretary.The former chief whip has taken a job as chair of the advisory board of RTC Education Ltd, which has given more than £165,000 to the Conservatives. Continue reading...

Jo Maugham, of the Good Law Project, says people want to know why laws seem to apply to them, but not to Boris JohnsonThe Metropolitan police is facing a legal challenge over accusations that it failed to fully investigate Boris Johnson’s presence at lawbreaking parties during Covid lockdown.The judicial review is being brought by the Good Law Project, which has a history of challenging the government’s decision-making in the courts, and Brian Paddick, a Lib Dem peer and former senior police officer. Continue reading...

Fiasco involves automated system that has led to 200,000 government workers being overpaid, underpaid or not paid at allA woman in Newfoundland has lost her house after the government of Canada stopped paying her while she was on contract with its own revenue agency.Joanne Nemec Osmond’s ordeal is the latest case in a debacle surrounding an automated payroll system which has led to 200,000 government workers in the country being overpaid, underpaid – or not paid at all. Continue reading...

The artist, whose husband claimed credit for her hugely successful paintings of sad-eyed children, died at her home of heart failureMargaret Keane, the artist known for her “big eyes” paintings, has died at the age of 94.Keane was embroiled in a legal battle over the rights to her work after her husband claimed credit, a story told by Tim Burton in the 2014 film Big Eyes. Her daughter Jane Swigert confirmed her death at home in Napa, California, as the result of heart failure. Continue reading...

Petrol Retailers Association says motorists driving off without paying, as average cost hits new high of 191.2p a litreFuel thefts from British filling stations have shot up by nearly two-thirds this year to record levels amid soaring prices, an industry body has said.The Petrol Retailers Association said drive-off incidents, where a motorist fills up and makes no attempt to pay before leaving, have increased by 61% so far this year compared with the same period in 2021. Continue reading...

Deputy PM says matter is ‘settled in UK law’ and he would not want Britain to be in same situation as USDominic Raab has expressed doubts about including the right to an abortion in the forthcoming bill of rights, saying the matter was already “settled in UK law”.A cross-party amendment intends to enshrine the right in the bill, though abortion in England and Wales was decriminalised in the 1967 Abortion Act, which exempts women from prosecution for the procedure if it is signed off by two doctors. Continue reading...

Shadow foreign secretary says he wrongly thought staff wanted 10% pay rise, rather than reinstatement of Covid pay cutThe shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has apologised for condemning plans for a strike by workers at British Airways, saying he had “made a mistake” about the facts.Labour’s stance on strikes has come under intense scrutiny in the past week, after several frontbenchers disregarded an order by Keir Starmer not to attend picket lines during the three days of RMT industrial action. Continue reading...

Scotland’s deputy first minister backtracks after contradicting Nicola Sturgeon by saying majority of seats would be enoughJohn Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has issued a correction after sowing confusion over the Scottish government’s claims it could win a mandate for independence at the next general election.Swinney told the BBC on Wednesday morning the Scottish National party needed only to win a majority of Scotland’s Westminster seats at the next election to have a mandate to negotiate independence with the UK government. Continue reading...

Move comes after outgoing ethics adviser expressed concern, but ministers say it will protect domestic industryTariffs on steel imports from China and other countries are to be extended for another two years, the UK government has announced.It said it was necessary to protect the domestic steel industry from a flood of cheap imports. Continue reading...

Steve Bray says he intends to make protests louder with new amplifiers and is considering riding on rickshaw

Dominic Paul will replace Alison Brittain, one of the few female FTSE 100 CEOs, in March 2023Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, has confirmed the current boss of Domino’s Pizza will replace Alison Brittain as its chief executive next year.The hospitality company, which also owns Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, said Dominic Paul would take over from Brittain – one of the few female FTSE 100 CEOs – at the start of the next financial year in March 2023. Continue reading...

EU executive defends its right not to keep records of president’s messages after rebuke from ombudsmanThe European Commission has said it cannot and does not need to find text messages that its president, Ursula von der Leyen, exchanged with the boss of Pfizer at the height of the pandemic, fuelling its dispute with the EU’s internal watchdog.The commission’s defence of its right not to keep records of Von der Leyen’s text messages was published on Wednesday by the EU’s official watchdog, the European Ombudsman, which conducted an initial investigation after a complaint about transparency. Continue reading...

Plan for Great Britain’s regional networks includes boosting grid capacity and improving resilience in extreme weatherThe chief executive of Ofgem has insisted that bills will not rise for consumers amid plans to plough £20bn into upgrading Great Britain’s regional electricity networks.The energy regulator has set out a £20.9bn package to upgrade the grids, which includes £2.7bn of upfront funding to boost capacity. Continue reading...

Acting treaty commissioner Tony McAvoy recommends forum for Indigenous people to endorse a state-wide treaty model

Transport minister David Elliott says government will agree to changes worth about $260m to intercity fleet

Environment ministers back phasing out fossil-fuel cars by 2035 and a €59bn fund to help ease cost burden of new policies on low income earnersEU countries clinched deals on proposed laws to combat the climate crisis in the early hours of Wednesday, backing a 2035 phase-out of new fossil-fuel car sales and a multibillion-euro fund to shield poorer citizens from the costs of carbon dioxide emissions.After more than 16 hours of negotiations, environment ministers from the 27 member states agreed their joint positions on five laws, part of a broader package of measures to slash planet-heating emissions this decade. Continue reading...

Politicians try out device fitted with heated pads that mimics one of the menopause’s most unpleasant symptoms“Volcanic” and “very uncomfortable” – just some reactions from male MPs trying out a vest that simulates menopause hot flushes as part of an event raising awareness of the UK’s acute shortages of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products.Wes Streeting, Stephen Kinnock and Nick Thomas-Symonds were among the politicians who tried out the device fitted with heated pads that mimics one of the most common and unpleasant symptoms. Continue reading...

Coroner Jane Bentley hands down findings in the inquest of Hannah Clarke and her children, who died at the hands of estranged husband Rowan Baxter

Planning minister Lizzie Blandthorn expected to act with integrity after concerns over lobbyist brother

Head of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, told to ‘unwind’ process after an instruction from the office of the then deputy premier John Barilaro

Scott Hines, who formerly worked in ANZ’s Mildura branch, has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison

Ambassador rejects ‘debt trap’ concerns, saying heavily indebted Pacific nation will not be forced to pay back loansChina’s ambassador to Tonga has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy in the Pacific, saying in his first press conference in two years that if the heavily indebted country cannot repay its loans, “we can talk and negotiate in a friendly, diplomatic manner”.Cao Xiaolin told Tuesday’s gathering in Nuku’alofa – a rare opportunity for journalists to question Chinese officials – that preferential loans from China came with “no political strings attached” and that Beijing would never force countries to repay the loans. Continue reading...

Judy Lindsay had met with mayor Karen Williams earlier that day to discuss loss of her daughter in drink-driving incident

MPs spar over their stances, with opposition leader Christopher Luxon forced to manage the gulf between his personal views and National party policyAs the repeal of Roe v Wade rolls back women’s abortion rights in the US, New Zealand politicians are facing fresh scrutiny of their own anti-abortion stances.New Zealanders broadly support abortion rights, with Ipsos polling indicating 77% of the population supports a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy in some or any circumstances. In 2020, the country formally decriminalised abortion, allowing terminations at up to 20 weeks. Continue reading...

Inner city rental listing advertises six capsules stacked in a room as Australian rental crisis worsens

Draft shifts country away from Pinochet-era document, enshrining cultural rights and laying out path of autonomy for Indigenous peoplesThe process of drafting Chile’s new constitution has come to an abrupt, jubilant end as the final votes were held quickly by the 154-member, gender-equal constitutional convention.Huddling between the colonnades at the former congress building in Santiago, which has played host to Chile’s constitutional process, the delegates hugged and cheered as the draft was finalised. Continue reading...

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Prime minister says Russian president’s gender a contributory factor to Ukraine invasion

Exclusive: watchdog’s decision follows nearly 70,000 unrecorded crimes and errors in stop and searchThe policing inspectorate’s unprecedented decision to place the Metropolitan police into special measures followed the uncovering of a litany of new “systemic” failings in fighting crime and serving victims, with tens of thousands of crimes going unrecorded and errors in stop and search.The decision was taken by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and follows an inspection that found 14 fresh significant failings, coming on top of a flood of scandals “chilling” in their damage to public confidence.“Performance falling far short of national standards for the handling of emergency and non-emergency calls, including too many instances of failure to assess vulnerability and repeat victimisation, failures to provide crime prevention advice and failures to properly advise victims on how to preserve evidence.”“A barely adequate standard of crime recording accuracy, with an estimated 69,000 crimes going unrecorded each year, less than half of crime recorded within 24 hours, and almost no crimes recorded when victims report antisocial behaviour against them.”Failing to tell some victims investigations into their crime were being dropped.Not seeking or considering victims’ views.Poor supervision of some investigations and failures in public protection. Continue reading...

After announcing she was receiving end-of-life care, James launched Bowelbabe Fund for cancer researchDame Deborah James, the headteacher turned podcaster who raised millions of pounds for charity with her campaigning to raise awareness of bowel cancer, has died, her family has said.James, who was 40, stepped away from a career as a deputy headteacher and began blogging about her diagnosis under the name Bowel Babe in 2017. She went on to become a Sun columnist and released a book, Fuck You Cancer: How to Face the Big C, Live Your Life and Still Be Yourself. Continue reading...

Census figure reaches 59.6m, up 3.5m on 2011 – leaving an estimated UK population of 67mThe population of England and Wales aged 65 and over has finally surpassed the number of children aged under 15, according to the first results of the 2021 census, which provided a snapshot of an increasingly crowded island nation.As a 20% surge in the number of people aged 65 and over in the past decade drove the population of England and Wales to a historic high of 59,597,300, the Office for National Statistics recorded 11.1 million people aged 65 and over compared with 10.4 million people aged under 15, tipping a balance that has favoured the young for decades. Continue reading...

Analysis: Downing Street’s call for a reality check on defence spending comes at an unexpected momentFlying to a Nato summit – at a time when there is a major war at the other end of Europe – is a curious time for Boris Johnson to be drawn into a row about defence spending, and whether a manifesto commitment has been broken.The message from Downing St over the course of Tuesday was that a promise to increase defence spending by inflation plus 0.5% a year has become too expensive, with the cost of living at 9.1%, its highest rate in 40 years. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss among those saying Ukraine war highlights potential Chinese threat to TaiwanBoris Johnson and his ministers are going into the Nato summit with fresh warnings that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the need for extra vigilance and caution over potential Chinese action against Taiwan.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, who is joining the prime minister at the Nato gathering in Madrid, was most explicit, calling for faster action to help Taiwan with defensive weapons, a key requirement for Ukraine since the invasion. Continue reading...

PM insists manifesto promise of above-inflation increase will be kept despite Downing Street ‘reality check’ briefingBoris Johnson faces a potential rift with senior ministers and generals at the start of a vital Nato summit in Madrid, after Downing Street indicated it would ditch a key manifesto commitment on defence spending.In a chaotic sequence of events, a senior government source said there needed to be “a reality check” on the pledge to increase the defence budget each year by 0.5% above inflation, only for Johnson to try to argue it would be achieved. Continue reading...