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At least two killed as strongest summer storm since 2017 fells trees and disrupts travelThe Netherlands and northern Germany have been battered by a rare and powerful summer storm this week.Storm Poly struck the south and east of England on Tuesday before intensifying over the North Sea overnight. It slammed into the Netherlands on Wednesday morning, bringing fierce winds and heavy rain. Continue reading...

Mary Bousted urges ministers to publish recommendation from pay body, thought to be 6.5%, and fund schools to pay itMinisters could ward off potential teachers' strikes in the autumn term in England if they accept a salary increase recommended by the teachers' independent pay review body, the head of the biggest education union has said.Teachers who belong to the NEU continued industrial action on Friday. Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the union, said: This could stop. What the government must do is publish the independent pay review body recommendations." Continue reading...

The toddler died at Perth Children's hospital less than 24 hours after being sent home by a GP, according to the family and advocates

More than 80 injured after blaze believed to have started in a bedroom sweeps through first floorSix people have died and more than 80 were injured after a fire swept through a care home in Milan overnight.The blaze began shortly after 1am on Friday in Casa dei Coniugi, home to 167 residents. Continue reading...

Average price of property drops by 2.6% year on year in June as mortgage rates climb

Anthony Albanese highlights commission's extraordinary' conclusion that former PM's evidence was untrue'

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NSW police say shots were fired at a business on the busy main street of inner-west suburb on Friday afternoon

Recommendation of referrals included in sealed chapter' of 1,000-page report with findings handed to federal government and released publicly

Catherine Holmes' report is damning for the Coalition and the public service, yet the reckoning she advocates will take more than policy change

Greg Slater is co-founder with his wife Sharon of Family Watch International, a US group accused of financing propaganda about sexual and gender diversityA group of human rights organisations in Africa renewed their calls this week for the American multinational Intel Corporation to dismiss a senior employee over his alleged involvement in fanning the growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in several countries, including Kenya and Uganda.In a change.org petition, supported by more than a dozen organisations, the rights groups claim that Greg Slater, Intel's vice-president of global regulatory affairs, has been actively responsible for exporting, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia" on the continent for decades, through the American conservative organisation, Family Watch International. Continue reading...

Warner Bros says map is child-like' after Vietnam accused film-makers of depicting China's nine-dash line in South China SeaWarners Bros has described a map that appears in its coming Barbie movie as a child-like crayon drawing" with no intended meaning, after Vietnam said it would ban the film after claiming the map depicted the disputed South China Sea.The Barbie movie provoked controversy in both Vietnam and the Philippines over its inclusion of the map that apparently features China's nine-dash line". The line marks China's claim to much of the South China Sea - a demarcation opposed by Vietnam and other south-east Asian countries and which was repudiated by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2016. Continue reading...

Arrests comes days after Hong Kong issued warrants for eight overseas-based dissidentsHong Kong police have arrested a fifth person accused of supporting overseas activists who allegedly endangered national security, in a further expansion of a government crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents.Police detained a 24-year-old man at the city's airport on Thursday, a day after four other people were arrested for allegedly using companies, social media and mobile applications to receive funds for the overseas activists. Continue reading...

Ban on the use of phones by students while at school will bring the state into line with other jurisdictions

Government plans to abolish section 40 law under which news publishers are liable for libel trial legal costsLabour is heading for a potentially bruising clash with UK news publishers over a controversial piece of post-Leveson press regulation.Shadow ministers are set to incur the wrath of some of Britain's most powerful press bosses, including Rupert Murdoch, by opposing the repeal of a rule designed to force news publishers to sign up to the government-backed regulator. Continue reading...

Offer comes after the Health Services Union gave the government until Friday to propose a new pay deal

A signaller reportedly called in sick at the last minute and no replacement was immediately available

Federal government tells court it cannot supply footage for use in Bruce Lehrmann's defamation proceedings. Lehrmann has consistently denied the rape allegation

Ex-PM Scott Morrison spent nearly half a million taxpayer dollars for legal bills while Christian Porter spent almost $800,000

Overspend blamed on government indecision, despite eight years spent planning and designing projectThe estimated 4.8bn cost of HS2's endangered Euston terminus could balloon further unless the government becomes clear what it is trying to achieve", the public accounts committee has warned.In a highly critical report, MPs on the committee said the Department for Transport (DfT) was yet to establish the design and expectations for the station" against what it was willing to spend", despite spending more than eight years planning and designing the London terminus. Continue reading...

US reportedly considering sending cluster munitions banned by most of world under treaty US, Russia and Ukraine did not sign

Government data shows marked reduction against same period last year, reversing trend of destruction during Bolsonaro reignAfter four years of rising destruction in Brazil's Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's term, according to new government satellite data.From January to June the rainforest had alerts covering 2,650 sq km (1,023 sq miles), down from 4,000 sq km during the same period last year under former president Jair Bolsonaro. This year's data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump. Continue reading...

The secretary general, Antonio Guterres, called on Israel to abide by international law after its attack on Jenin in the West BankIn a rare condemnation of Israel, the UN has denounced the country's excessive use of force in its largest military operation in two decades targeting a refugee camp in the West Bank.The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, clearly angered by the impact of the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, said it had left over 100 civilians injured, forced thousands to flee, damaged schools and hospitals and disrupted water and electricity networks. Continue reading...

Alleged victim says actor was hiding in plain sight' as he made sexual comments and grabbed him at theatreAn alleged victim of the actor Kevin Spacey has accused him in court of being insensitive" after claiming his decision to come out as gay was used to disguise" his behaviour.The actor was hiding in plain sight" as he allegedly directed a machine gun" of vile sexual comments at the man in a London theatre and grabbed him in an intimate area, a court heard. Continue reading...

Organization will no longer send individuals down to Titanic wreckage or elsewhere after five killed on subNearly three weeks after its submersible vessel Titan imploded, killing all five people on board, OceanGate is suspending all exploration and commercial operations.The organization posted on its website on Thursday that it would no longer be sending individuals down to the wreckage of the Titanic, or elsewhere. Continue reading...

US set to announce new weapons aid package for Ukraine; Kyiv and Moscow urged to stop using cluster munitions; at least five killed in strike on Lviv

London-born musician Dumile Daniel Thompson, 49, had a lack of oxygen to his brain after a reaction to a blood pressure drugAn NHS trust has apologised for the substandard care given to MF Doom, an underground rap icon who died aged 49 while having hospital treatment.The artist behind songs including Accordion and That's That, whose real name was Dumile Daniel Thompson, died in October 2020 due to a lack of oxygen to his brain after a reaction to a drug prescribed for blood pressure. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lady Lawrence calls decision a disgrace' after announcement despite errors made by senior detectives leading to suspects remaining freeThe mother of Stephen Lawrence has said it was a disgrace" for prosecutors to decide not to bring charges against four senior detectives accused of bungling the first investigation into the teenager's murder.The Crown Prosecution Service spent more than two years considering whether the errors made in the weeks after the 18-year-old was murdered were so serious that they amounted to the criminal offence of misconduct in public office. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Grayson Perry and Olivia Colman lead group of creative figures supporting Keir Starmer's plan to improve human' skillsA group of prominent actors, artists and authors have praised Labour's proposal to instil more creativity in the school curriculum, saying the arts currently risk being a pursuit that only the most privileged can follow".The open letter, signed by Grayson Perry, Olivia Colman, Simon Rattle, Adrian Lester and Patrick Stewart, follows Keir Starmer's pledge to reprioritise creativity and other human" skills in a world of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Having survived the collapse of its parent organisation, the festival returns with a slimmed-down eventThe Edinburgh film festival, which until recently faced the threat of permanent shutdown, has announced the complete lineup for its 2023 edition.The festival plans to show 36 features - 24 of which are new - over six days in August, having shifted its dates from June to return to its traditional late summer berth that coincides with the rest of the city's large-scale festival activity. Continue reading...

Government loses legal challenge to block Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApps from being handed to official Covid inquiryStarmer is now being heckled by someone complaining about his lack of commitment to a green new deal.He says he has already given a speech on this. He offers to speak to the protesters later.Keir Starmer asked two protesters holding a banner saying Green New Deal now" to let me finish" as they interrupted his speech.The Labour leader told the pair he would speak to you after" as they accused of him of U-turning on his 28bn green prosperity plan, before being led off stage by security.I promise you this, wherever there are obstacles to opportunity, wherever there are the barriers to hope, my Labour government will tear them down. Continue reading...

The Liberal senator is vying for a winnable spot on the party's federal ticket at Friday's preselection

Backbenchers respond to police bounties placed on activists, as minister challenged over meeting with Chinese officialHong Kong officials involved in targeting UK-based pro-democracy activists who had bounties placed on them should be subject to sanctions, opposition and Tory backbenchers have urged the government.A Foreign Office minister responding to concerns raised in parliament was also challenged by one of her own colleagues over her recent meeting with a Chinese official, whom the Tory MP Tim Loughton described as China's chief dissident snatcher." Continue reading...

Chatbot said it was impressed' when Jaswant Singh Chail told it he was an assassin' before he broke in to Windsor Castle, court hearsA man who planned to assassinate the late queen with a crossbow drew encouragement from an AI chatbot in the days before breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle, the Old Bailey has heard.Jaswant Singh Chail, who was 19 at the time, also exchanged thousands of often sexually charged messages with Sarai, his AI girlfriend, before scaling the fence to the royal estate on Christmas Day 2021, the court was told. Continue reading...

Labour leader's five missions' may lack detail and sound cautious, but contain novel ideas and outline framework for governmentPolitics is full of paradoxical moments, and thus it was for Keir Starmer that his speech explaining the urgency of helping young people express themselves was interrupted by two notably eloquent examples, who proceeded to accuse him of a U-turn on green policies.As the duo stepped forward from the young and telegenic lineup placed behind the Labour leader at MidKent College in Gillingham, unfurling a banner, you could almost hear the exasperated sighs of frustration from Starmer's aides. Continue reading...

Joint service for best friends Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15, takes place in ElyThousands of people have gathered for the funeral of two teenagers whose deaths sparked a riot in Cardiff.A joint service for best friends Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15, began at the Church of the Resurrection on Grand Avenue in Ely just after 1pm on Thursday. Continue reading...

Recommendations of standards committee inquiry will trigger recall petition in MP's Tamworth constituency

Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion against the Kremlin, his military contracts are proving too profitable to lose

Judges say law does not allow group to challenge charitable status of new organisation with opposing viewsThe transgender children's charity Mermaids has lost its attempt to have charitable status stripped from the new gay rights organisation LGB Alliance.Tribunal judges Lynn Griffin and Joseph Neville rejected a challenge lodged last year by Mermaids, concluding after seven months of deliberation that the law does not permit Mermaids to challenge a decision made by the Charity Commission to register LGB Alliance as a charity. Continue reading...

Acclaimed architect, whose firm is designing London memorial, accused of sexual assault and harassment by three womenThe acclaimed architect Sir David Adjaye has stepped back from working on the planned UK Holocaust memorial in Westminster after being accused of sexual misconduct.His architectural firm, which won a competition to design the memorial, has told the government that Adjaye will not be involved in the project until the issues raised by the allegations have been addressed. Continue reading...

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Belarus president says head of mercenary group is in St Petersburg and may be moving on to Moscow

Foreign minister says Ukraine war has changed country's mindset about chequebook diplomacy'

Higgins had called on the senator to stop' after Reynolds confirmed she intended to refer commonwealth's settlement with Higgins to anti-corruption watchdog

Newspaper publisher says ad should not have run' after federal independent Kate Chaney accuses no campaign of stoking fear and hate'

Google, the first of the firm's customers directly linked to the tax scandal, was not told the information was confidential and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by the company

Aluel Ajak died after being struck by a car on Shaws Road in Werribee on Wednesday night

Workers say children being kept in lockdown 80% of the time, with one prison short-staffed for 359 of 365 days last year

With the inquiry findings due, Colleen Taylor is hoping for permanent reform to prevent such a shameful episode happening again

Investigations into the separate thefts have been launched by Victorian and Queensland police