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Russian president rails against EU price cap as he also claims Ukrainian grain exports not going to world’s poorest countries

Former PM says likes of caregivers and nurses show up in a crisis and government must show up for them

Queen accepts guidance ‘after full day yesterday’ when monarch met Liz Truss at BalmoralThe Queen will miss a privy council meeting after being advised by doctors to rest “after a full day yesterday”, according to reports.The palace said the meeting set to take place virtually on Wednesday evening will be rearranged, PA news reports. “After a full day yesterday, Her Majesty has this afternoon accepted doctors’ advice to rest,” a palace spokesperson said. Continue reading...

Jenrick appointed to Department of Health and Social care while Baker goes to Northern Ireland OfficeRobert Jenrick, who left government under a cloud after he intervened to grant planning permission to a Conservative donor, has made a return to the frontbench – as has Steve Baker, the Brexit hardliner and former leading backbench rebel.It came as Liz Truss reached out to some Rishi Sunak supporters in a series of junior ministerial appointments, a day after she appointed a cabinet made up almost entirely of allies and backers in the just-ended leadership race. Continue reading...

Skills and training minister says ‘we want to see more women in construction and in the traditional trades’

John Swinney says finances under ‘enormous strain’, while tenants’ groups question reach of rent freezeScotland’s acting finance minister, John Swinney, has announced plans for £500m of spending cuts as public sector pay disputes, provision for displaced Ukrainians, as well as Tuesday’s pledges on cost of living support place “enormous strain” on government finances.Underlining that Scotland’s budget was “at the absolute limits of affordability” and already worth £1.7bn less than when it was published in December, as a result of inflation, he told MSPs: “Every penny more on one policy is a penny less on another policy.” Continue reading...

Wealthy households with big bills will be among those to benefit most from ‘very poorly targeted’ packageGovernment plans to cap energy bills are “poorly targeted” and will fail to protect low-income families without a package of additional support, charities and thinktanks have warned.Liz Truss is expected to announce a £90bn package to cap average household energy bills on Thursday, alongside subsidies for small and medium-sized businesses, after concerns the spiralling cost of gas and electricity is on course to push inflation towards 20% next year. Continue reading...

Man on day release hijacked car at gunpoint in Mannheim and then died in head-on collision near NancyA German man’s escape from a prison day-release scheme resulted in a cross-border manhunt that ended hours later in a fatal crash in neighboring France, police said on Wednesday.The 28-year-old fugitive hijacked a car at gunpoint in Mannheim, 190 miles (300km) south-west of Berlin, on Monday, forcing the driver to take off down a highway before leaving her at a rest stop. Continue reading...

Rankings in 2012 were subject of lengthy legal proceedings, and several top châteaux have pulled out this yearWinemakers in the historic vineyards of Saint-Émilion in France are hoping that prestigious wine rankings unveiled on Thursday will put an end to more than a decade of court cases, legal wrangling and controversy.The sedate area of Saint-Émilion, with its Romanesque architecture and collection of vineyards classed as a world heritage site, has been at the centre of a long-running row over its famous rankings, which are decided every 10 years. Continue reading...

Spectators shout in apparent glee as dignitaries struggle to get off crumpled structure during launchDignitaries gathered to inaugurate a footbridge in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo only for the structure to collapse beneath their feet to the barely concealed delight of onlookers, a video shows.Just as an organiser cut the ribbon at the ceremony in Mont-Ngafula district in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, the bridge buckled, both its handrails broke off and the central section slumped into a stream a couple of metres below. Continue reading...

Northern Ireland minister Conor Burns thanks architects of peace deal who have been helping to get UK and EU back to tableTony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the architects of the landmark peace deal in Northern Ireland, have been working behind the scenes to try to get the UK and the EU back to the negotiating table over Brexit and the collapse of the Stormont government, it has been revealed.The Northern Ireland minister, Conor Burns, thanked them for their support in the House of Commons on Thursday. He revealed he had spent the summer north and south of the border in dozens of meetings with parties and civic representatives to try to break the double impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol and power-sharing, which the Democratic Unionist party has been boycotting since May. Continue reading...

Actor is accused of ‘unlawfully and maliciously’ inflicting grievous bodily harm on man named Karl PooleThe actor Stephen Tompkinson will claim self-defence when he goes on trial charged with grievous bodily harm, a court has heard.The 56-year-old, who is best known for playing the title role in the ITV crime drama DCI Banks, is due to go on trial at Newcastle crown court next year. Continue reading...

Russian president says he wants to revise agreement to allow export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea

Finding by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists in remote Borneo cave rewrites understanding of human history

Ronson Chan was preparing for stint in UK before being arrested for allegedly obstructing a police officerThe head of Hong Kong’s journalist union has been arrested, weeks before he was due to leave for an overseas fellowship at Oxford University.Ronson Chan, the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), was arrested for allegedly obstructing a police officer and disorderly conduct in a public place. Continue reading...

As Liz Truss gave her first address outside Downing Street, her supporters were watching. This picture shows who’s who1. Andrew Wong, digital adviser.2. Hugh Bennett, adviser on Brexit. Continue reading...

The tilt back to ideas was refreshing but her opponent sounded closer to where public opinion is on the energy crisis

Average price of home rises to £294,260 in August as cost of living crisis and interest rates hit homeThe average price of a UK home climbed again in August, although the rate of annual growth slowed, as the country’s largest lender warned of a “more challenging period” ahead for house prices amid rising interest rates and the cost of living squeeze.The average price of a home was £294,260 in August, 0.4% higher than the previous month, and marked another record high, according to Halifax. Continue reading...

Distraught teenagers lay flowers and cards at site south-west of Sydney, near Picton, where their friends died

Jack Sepple admits killing 19-year-old Ashley Wadsworth, whom he met via a dating appA man has admitted killing a Canadian teenager he had met on a dating app.Jack Sepple, 23, pleaded guilty at Chelmsford crown court to the murder of 19-year-old Ashley Wadsworth. Continue reading...

Former Manchester United footballer to face retrial over alleged assault of ex-girlfriendRyan Giggs has said he is “disappointed” to face a second trial next summer over allegations of assault and coercive behaviour against his former girlfriend.The former Manchester United and Wales footballer will face a retrial from 31 July 2023 after jurors in his first trial were unable to reach verdicts last week. Continue reading...

Many charities, often housed in draughty old buildings, say they will have to cut services or close in face of spiralling costsCommunity organisations in draughty old civic buildings have said they will have to close or reduce services unless the new prime minister, Liz Truss, includes them in Thursday’s expected energy bills bailout.Charities and community trusts, many occupying leaky Victorian, Georgian and 20th-century structures, are facing some of the sharpest rises in utility bills. More than a third fear they will have to close or significantly reduce their services in the next six months, a survey has revealed. Continue reading...

Three other men arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender bailed, as police continue investigation into child’s deathA 34-year-old man arrested on suspicion of the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel and attempted murder has been released on conditional bail.The man, from Liverpool, was one of four people arrested on Sunday. Three other men, aged 29, 34 and 41, suspected of assisting an offender, were also bailed, Merseyside police said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The 25-year-old Scottish singer has been treating the condition with botox injections and says that he is ‘learning new ways to cope all the time’Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi has revealed that he has been diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. The 25-year-old star, who broke out with the chart-topping 2018 single Someone You Loved, said on Instagram Live that the diagnosis “makes so much sense”: “When I look back at my interviews from 2018, I can see that I’m doing it,” he said.The singer said that he chose to go public with the diagnosis because he “didn’t want people to think I was taking cocaine or something,” and noted that he had initially thought it was “some horrible degenerative disease” before he was properly diagnosed. “My shoulder twitches when I am excited, happy, nervous or stressed,” he said. “It is something I am living with.” Continue reading...

Motorists are buying older cars and struggling with maintenance costs as pressure on households buildsThe boss of Halfords has warned that the UK cost of living crisis is creating “a risk to road safety” as drivers buy older cars and struggle with maintenance costs.The warning came as the motoring and cycling retailer reported higher sales over the past 20 weeks as it was boosted by its expanding car repairs business. Continue reading...

Cousin of NT man shot dead during arrest says she livestreamed as family gathered outside police station out of fear of media, police

Victorian coroner says if Anthony Georgiou had not been involved in struggle at Frankston store ‘he would have walked away from Bunnings that day’

Michael Coutts-Trotter tells parliament his ‘preliminary view’ is that Amy Brown hadn’t ‘satisfactorily performed’ during hiring process, based on report findings

Report finds widespread instances of forced labour, with women denied access to passports and subjected to physical or sexual abuseOman is failing to protect migrant domestic workers who are victims of human trafficking, trapped in abusive households and subjected to physical and sexual violence with no access to justice or a safe route home, a report has found.Do Bold, an organisation that works to assist and repatriate migrant workers trapped in the Gulf, interviewed 469 domestic workers from Sierra Leone working in Oman, for the report. It concluded that all but one of the women interviewed were victims of forced labour and human trafficking. Continue reading...

Live updates on new appointments to the government as prime minister Liz Truss assembles her team

The 38-year-old is in a critical condition after being shot in the abdomen at Kangaroo Point in inner Brisbane

Consumer watchdog says cancellations at record levels outside of pandemic and predicts more travel chaos at Christmas

Queensland landlord informs residents their homes will be turned into short-term rentals

Det Sen Sgt Cameron Blaine, known for rescuing the kidnapped four-year-old, faces a police and CCC investigationThe decision to stand down a prominent West Australian homicide detective accused of misconduct does not mean he is guilty, the state’s police chief, Col Blanch, said.WA Police and the Corruption and Crime Commission have launched a joint investigation into allegations against Det Sen Sgt Cameron Blaine.Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Continue reading...

Exhibition shines light on items brought back by those posted to Hadrian’s Wall 2,000 years agoIt might these days be a mug, tea towel, bottle of gin or that jar of toffee apple curd still in the back of the cupboard.But nearly 2,000 years ago, if you had the money, it was beautifully enamelled wine cups commissioned from the most skilled craftspeople.Memento: Souvenirs from Hadrian’s Wall is at Chesters Roman Fort and Museum until 30 October Continue reading...

Research offers possibility that a decline in the birthrate contributes to liberalisationLike grey hairs and unexpected aches, becoming more conservative is often thought to be a by-product of age. But now it appears it may be rooted in a different cause: having children.Researchers have found that people who do not have children tend to be more socially liberal than parents, and that having children helps explain why people tend to become more rightwing with age. Continue reading...

The new British prime minister also spoke to Volodymyr Zelenskiy on her first day in office, pledging UK ‘assistance for the long term’Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing global energy crisis have emerged as a leading foreign policy priorities for Britain’s new prime minister Liz Truss, as she and her US counterpart Joe Biden promised to strengthen their relationship in face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression.Truss’s call to Biden on Tuesday night followed a conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and focused on what she called “the extreme economic problems caused by Putin’s war”. Biden and Truss “reinforced their commitment to strengthening global liberty, tackling the risks posed by autocracies and ensuring Putin fails in Ukraine”, according to Downing Street. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese claims he is ‘not privy’ to details of former Coalition staffer’s case which led to $650,000 payment

The filters had prompted questions over the treatment of sacred cultural artefacts on tech platformsThe social media company that owns Snapchat has removed filters that applied images of sacred Māori tattoos to users’ faces, after the discovery of the culturally offensive filters on social media apps provoked an outcry in New Zealand.An investigation by Radio New Zealand revealed filters featuring tā moko tattoos have proliferated on social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat. Continue reading...

Gulf states did not identify the type of content, though Saudi Arabia state-media condemned shows with gay charactersA group of Persian Gulf states have threatened Netflix with legal action if it continues broadcasting content that “contradicts” Islam, while Saudi state media indicated that the offending material centred on shows depicting sexual minorities.A statement issued jointly by the Saudi media regulator and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), headquartered in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, did not specifically identify material, referring only to content that “contradicts Islamic and societal values”. Continue reading...

Police chief says accident scene was ‘one of the worst’ he had ever seen, with the victims all believed to have gone to Picton high school

Secretary general says agreement must be secured to commit Russian forces to withdraw and Ukrainian forces not to move in

Latest updates: Duo respectively appointed to international trade and business, while Suella Braverman becomes new home secretaryJohnson says it is the Conservatives who understand “the vital symmetry between government action and free market capitalist private sector enterprise”.He is now rattling through a list of what he sees as his achievements in government: more police, new hospitals, more nurses. He even repeats the (false) claim that the government is on course to build 40 new hospitals by the end of the decade. Continue reading...

Former Brexit opportunities minister becomes business and energy secretary in Liz Truss’s first cabinetJacob Rees-Mogg has taken on responsibility for energy after Liz Truss had struggled to find a dedicated minister to fill the role amid concerns over his scepticism.Two Conservative MPs are understood to have turned down the role of climate change minister earlier in the day. However, late on Tuesday night No 10 announced that Graham Stuart would take the brief and be attending cabinet, prompting speculation that Downing Street had succumbed to concerns of green Tories about giving the role to Rees-Mogg as originally planned.Clearly expectations of a final disaster are part of man’s psychology and the doomsayers of the quasi religious green movement fit the bill. Perhaps one day the world will end, giving the last group to predict it the satisfaction of being right – but as many have been wrong so far it does not seem wise to make public policy on the back of these fears.It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions have risen but the effect on the climate remains much debated while the computer modelling that has been done to date has not proved especially accurate … common sense dictates that if the Meteorological Office cannot forecast the next season’s weather with any success it is ambitious to predict what will happen decades ahead.I would like my constituents to have cheap energy rather more than I would like them to have windmills.I think we have to be realistic about what we can change, the timescale over which we can change it, and actually I think mankind is highly adaptable, and we need to look at more adaptability rather than changes in behaviour.Net zero is going to be a huge regulatory cost and that is an issue for the country to face and to face up to … If we were to have a ‘one in, one out’ or ‘one in, two out’ rule [where a piece of regulation is scrapped for every new one instituted], you would end up excluding net zero, as we previously excluded EU regulation, and then you’re tinkering at the edges because you’re ignoring the biggest piece of regulation. Continue reading...

Manasseh Sogavare calls Australia’s offer ‘an assault on our parliamentary democracy’ after saying his country had to delay elections because of cost

BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 spent record £1.45bn last year on shows from UK production companiesAmerican streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video cut the amount they spent on British-made shows for the first time last year, as the UK’s traditional broadcasters invested a record amount in a fightback against the global streamers.The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 spend on programmes from UK production companies rose 12% to a record £1.45bn last year, bouncing back from a decade low in 2020 when the Covid pandemic shut the industry down. Continue reading...

TUC general secretary says number of strike ballots is increasing, and joint action can end disputes soonerWorking people are at a turning point where they are not prepared to be “mugged off” with low pay any more, Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has said, ahead of motions at its congress on greater joint industrial action by unions this autumn.O’Grady, who leads the organising body for trade unions, said there was an increasing number of strike ballots at the moment, and that while many end in a deal, joint action can show the strength of feeling of workers and bring disputes to an end sooner. Continue reading...

Survey for Living Wage Foundation finds 56% of minority ethnic staff have experienced discrimination at workMinority ethnic workers in the UK are disproportionately paid below the “real living wage”, data shows, reigniting calls to offer support in the cost of living crisis.A report by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) says 33% of workers of Bangladeshi heritage, 29% of workers of Pakistani backgrounds and 25% of black workers earn below the real living wage, compared with 20% of white British workers. Continue reading...

Police alert warned James Smith Cree Nation residents to shelter in place but subsequent alert said Myles Sanderson was not nearbyFear, confusion and desperation have run high in western Canada as police widened the search for the remaining suspect in a stabbing spree that left 11 people dead.On Tuesday afternoon, an emergency alert to phones warned people to shelter in place after several people in the James Smith Cree Nation reported seeing Myles Sanderson, 30, who is wanted over the string of attacks which left at least 11 dead and 18 injured. Continue reading...

The new PM has rewarded her closest allies with top posts in her government alienating supporters of her main rivalOne truism of a new prime minister choosing their first cabinet is that this is the easiest appointments they will make, made from a position of strength. But such a set-piece moment can also sow the seeds of troubles to come – particularly, it could be argued, in the way Liz Truss has gone about the task.Before Truss was confirmed as the new Conservative leader, several party grandees urged her to avoid what they called Boris Johnson’s mistake of basing cabinet appointments purely on loyalty. Continue reading...