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If Moscow’s accusation is true, the airstrike would be first raid on Russian territory so far in the war

Sydney media’s reactionary momentum machine can help explain crackdown on climate activists

It is the second ruling of its type this week after the prime minister’s office also ordered a search for text messages from QAnon supporter Tim Stewart

London council chief says treatment of 15-year-old at school shows institutional racism in force still existsThe Metropolitan police has been urged by a council boss to accept that institutional racism is a problem in the force after the treatment of Child Q, a 15-year-old black girl who was strip-searched by officers at her school in London.Hackney council has challenged the Met to “again, accept that institutional racism – as defined in the Stephen Lawrence report – is a consistent factor in the relationship between the police and the Black and Global Majority communities, and in their wider experiences”. They said this will prevent a similar incident happening again and restore trust and confidence. Continue reading...

Alan Moher receives 18-month sentence for controlling or coercive behaviour after court hears he withheld ‘get’The owner of a property company has been jailed for 18 months for controlling or coercive behaviour after refusing to grant his wife a religious divorce.Alan Moher, 57, from Salford, separated from his wife, Caroline, in 2016 after 21 years, with the pair later being granted a divorce in a family court in 2019. But she is unable to remarry in a synagogue without a “get” – a document that formally recognises the end of marriage in the Orthodox Jewish faith. Continue reading...

Met Office warns of potential travel disruption due to ice in north-east and east of England as temperature dips below zero overnightWintry weather is set to continue this weekend, with further snow and sleet forecast across the east of the UK, after a light dusting fell in south-east England on Friday morning.Temperatures will stay low on Friday evening, plunging to -1C (30F) in northern Scotland and the east Midlands by early morning on Saturday, resulting in widespread frost. There will be rain and sleet in the west that will keep temperatures slightly warmer, and some hill snow over Wales, possibly also landing in lower altitudes. Continue reading...

London venue is staging a reading of Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s acclaimed drama, livestreamed here from 8pm on 1 AprilThe Royal Court theatre in London is presenting a day of solidarity with Ukraine that includes a reading on its main stage of Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s play Bad Roads, which explores the brutal effects of war on personal relationships. The reading, on 1 April, will be livestreamed on the Guardian website – including in a captioned version – and available to watch for a week.Bad Roads was first staged at the Royal Court in 2017 in a translation by Sasha Dugdale. Vorozhbit, an acclaimed Ukrainian playwright whose work has also been performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, wove documentary stories of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and Donbas into its impressionistic scenes. Bad Roads explores daily life under siege, hostage-taking, journalism on the frontline, PTSD and sex at a time of war. Continue reading...

Government-funded scheme links sponsors with refugees, but some groups fear misuse by traffickers

Analysis: while the right looks on gleefully at the left’s contortions over gender identity, it is no better at addressing the same subjectAt Tuesday evening’s back-slapping dinner for Conservative MPs, Boris Johnson greeted his colleagues with a typical joke, aimed at exploiting Labour’s discomfort over the sensitive issue of gender: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Or, as Keir Starmer would put it, people who are assigned female or male at birth,” he quipped.Just hours later, one of those MPs in attendance, Jamie Wallis, issued a heartfelt statement, admitting they are struggling with gender dysphoria. Continue reading...

Exclusive: British agencies write letter to government after learning that home secretary is pushing for designationYemen could be afflicted by an even worse humanitarian catastrophe if the UK government goes ahead with a plan to designate the Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, leading aid agencies have warned cabinet ministers in a letter.The 11 UK agencies are some of those most active in Yemen, and include Save the Children, Care, the International Rescue Committee, and Islamic Relief. Continue reading...

ONS survey estimates one in 14 people had coronavirus last week, with BA.2 variant fuelling riseCovid has hit an all-time high across the UK, with almost 5 million people estimated to have the virus in the most recent official data – one in 14 – prompting experts to call for the return of free testing.The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) came on the day the government ended free rapid tests for most people in England and as tens of thousands of people are hoping to embark on Easter holidays. Many will have to pay for a test to find out if they are infected, whether symptomatic or not. Continue reading...

Russia allows safe passage of 2,000 people via humanitarian corridor but Ukraine claims aid convoys blocked

Actor urges someone to spend $300m on ‘12 aircraft with better tech than Russian MiGs or SU’s’

Former government adviser says exclusion of trans people sends ‘message of impunity’The LGBT+ community has lost trust in the government following the debacle over a ban on so-called conversion practices, with many seeing the exclusion of trans people as a hostile act, according to a leading campaigner.Jayne Ozanne, a former government adviser on LGBT+ issues, said the approach, announced on Thursday evening after a double U-turn, “left the most vulnerable group completely unprotected”. She added: “This debacle has set the Conservatives back 20 years in their relations with the LGBT community.” Continue reading...

Boris Johnson performed two U-turns on Thursday about Tory pledge to ban LGBT conversion practicesBoris Johnson performed two U-turns within the space of a few hours on Thursday relating to the government’s four-year-old pledge to ban LGBTQ+ conversion practices. Continue reading...

Latest updates: Insolvency Service investigating circumstances surrounding decision to sack 800 people without a consultation

Rally and vigil held in Islamabad to highlight discrimination and attacks on community, including murders of five trans women in MarchMano had gone to meet her boyfriend at a printing press in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani bazaar to get back some money he had borrowed.“But he refused to pay,” her friend Farzana Riaz said. “Mano insisted and refused to leave without money. When Mano kept resisting, her boyfriend Sanaullah shot her.” Continue reading...

Sixteen are in the Gray report, a dozen of which are being investigated by the Met; four others are not mentioned

Razzies initial joke in response to announcement of the actor’s condition was not well receivedThe organizers of the Razzies parody awards show have rescinded Bruce Willis’s 2021 award in light of the actor’s recently disclosed aphasia diagnosis.The annual awards, which recognize the worst films and performances, gave Willis his own special category this year: “Worst performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 movie”. Continue reading...

Anxious families in north-west England town turn to Citizens Advice for help as inflation bites – but staff are out of answersAn eight-month-old baby girl snoozes in her pram while her mother, in those precious moments of quiet, counts the cost of feeding her four young children. A 16p increase in the price of chicken drumsticks has put them beyond her reach.“What my children eat – it’s too expensive. The cost of living has changed,” she said, in interview room four of Bolton’s Citizens Advice bureau. “Chicken drumsticks, they used to sell them for £1.49 – it’s now £1.65. And the bus pass as well. From my house it used to be £2. It’s now £3 … A £1 [increase] – that’s a lot.” Continue reading...

Pilots bring jet down in Denver after ‘maintenance issue mid-flight’ with no passengers or crew harmedThe pilots on a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Washington DC decided to bring their jet down in Denver after the cockpit windshield shattered above 30,000 feet. The crew repeatedly told passengers to remain calm until they landed.“They came on the loudspeaker saying that the windshield had shattered, and we were diverting to Denver in about 10 minutes,” Rachel Wright, one of the 198 passengers on the plane, told KUTV. Continue reading...

Analysis of 1638 work, Landscape with Arched Bridge, confirms longstanding belief of a number of expertsA landscape painting considered to have been the work of a Rembrandt pupil has been confirmed as having been executed by the Dutch master himself.In what has been described as a coup for curators at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, which owns the painting, Landscape with Arched Bridge is now considered a direct work of the 17th-century painter, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn. For decades it had been attributed to one of his pupils, Govert Flinck. Continue reading...

Met police send out penalty notices to those it has ‘reasonable belief’ attended gatherings at No 10

Supermarket says residue left by Saharan dust cloud on Spanish produce is nothing to worry aboutWindows and cars were not only the things coated by the recent Saharan dust cloud that made English skies glow orange: supermarkets are urging shoppers not to turn their noses up at dusty peppers and lettuces.Tesco has put up signs in its produce aisles advising customers that a small amount of dust had settled on its Spanish crops. Spain, which is a major produce supplier to the UK, bore the brunt of the storm, with iceberg and little gem lettuce, celery and peppers among the affected crops. Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron and the far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen are among 12 candidates in the French presidential election. We look at the latest polling, and introduce some of the candidatesFrance will vote to elect a new president in April, and the final list of candidates consists of twelve competitors, chief among them the Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.The current president, Emmanuel Macron, declared earlier this month that he intends to run for a second term. His second-round opponent from 2017, the far-right Marine Le Pen, had already launched her campaign.

From Sunday roast spaghetti to royal superyachts, the highs and lows of this year’s UK bandwagon of deceptionFor most people April Fools’ Day is either a bright spot in grim times, or a tedious parade of poor jokes we could all do without, with nothing in between. With a pandemic and a global focus on conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere, judging the tone of a decent April Fools’ gag has become much harder for companies, and even more so for news organisations battling a rising tide of disinformation on social media.For the Telegraph, the big news on April Fools’ Day was a plan by the England and Wales cricket board to drop the dreary and unsuccessful England men’s cricket team defeated in the West Indies and replace them wholesale with Heather Knight’s World Cup finalists. Continue reading...

Documents show Duke of York has repaid cash in dispute involving Turkish woman and businessmanThe Duke of York and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, have been named in a ruling on a high court case featuring a dispute between a Turkish woman and businessman.Nebahat Isbilen, 77, was allegedly tricked by Selman Turk into giving Prince Andrew £750,000 “by way of payment for assistance” with her passport, court documents reportedly show. Continue reading...

Irish police force inspector calls on officers to grow proper beards or shave in internal memoTo beard or not to beard, that is the question vexing Ireland’s police force in a controversy over officers’ patchy facial hair.A Garda Síochána supervisor has instructed subordinates to “smarten up” and grow a proper beard or to be clean-shaven and to avoid a ragged in-between look that resembles “a badly watered lawn in a heatwave”. Continue reading...

Demarchelier photographed Princess Diana, Beyonce and Madonna during long careerPatrick Demarchelier, the fashion photographer who worked with high-profile figures including Diana, Princess of Wales, has died at the age of 78.His death was announced by his representatives on Instagram on Thursday. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Patrick Demarchelier on 31 March 2022, at the age of 78,” the post read. “He is survived by his wife Mia, his three sons Gustaf, Arthur, Victor and three grandchildren.” Continue reading...

As Easter visitors arrive in the northern rivers, at least 60 people will be moved to alternative accommodationGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingAt least 60 flood victims in temporary housing in the New South Wales northern rivers will be relocated across the border to make way for tourists travelling to Byron Bay for the Easter holidays.Widespread flooding in the northern rivers region has resulted in 28,000 people being relocated across the region. Continue reading...

Mayor’s aide says city remains closed for anyone trying to enter and ‘very dangerous’ for those trying to leave

Landmark agreement to protect garment workers from violence follows last year’s murder of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a Dalit womanH&M has signed a legally binding agreement with one of its largest Indian clothing suppliers that pledges to end sexual violence and harassment against women on the factory floor after the murder of a young garment worker by her supervisor last year.In January 2021, Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit woman, was found dead on farmland near her family home after finishing a shift at Natchi Apparel, a factory making clothes for H&M in Kaithian Kottai, Tamil Nadu. Continue reading...

Officials amend state’s total coronavirus fatalities after revision by registry births, deaths and marriages

Fatima al-Masri, a 19-month-old with a hole in her heart, waited five months for Israel to issue a permit allowing her to travel for treatmentA 19-month-old child has died in Gaza after waiting for five months for Israel to grant her permission to leave the blockaded enclave for treatment.Human right groups said Israel’s blockade of Gaza was responsible for the death of Fatima al-Masri, who was diagnosed last year with a hole in the heart and who died on Friday. Continue reading...

Curfew lifted a day after 45 people were arrested when an angry crowd demanded the resignation of Gotabaya RajapaksaNearly 50 people were injured after authorities used teargas and water cannon to drive back a crowd that stormed the home of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, amid anger over the government’s handling of the nation’s deepening economic crisis.The crisis, the worst in living memory, has caused massive discontent, with people unable to find gas for cooking, medicines, fuel and basic items of food such as milk powder because the country has run out of foreign currency to pay for imported goods. Continue reading...

Payment of £400m debt led to release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh AshooriMPs are to examine why ministers delayed paying a debt to Iran even though they knew the payment was likely to lead to the release of two British-Iranian detainees.The foreign affairs select committee formally confirmed it was launching an inquiry adding that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori deserved the truth. Both were released a fortnight ago and returned to the UK from Iran after payment of the £400m debt on the understanding the money was used for humanitarian purposes. Continue reading...

Exclusive: survey finds ‘hidden epidemic’ of people humiliated, outed or shunned by family over their sexuality or gender identityYoung LGBTQ+ people in the UK are facing a “hidden epidemic” of abuse by close family members based on their sexuality or gender identity, according to a study.Nearly one in three LGBTQ+ people have experienced abuse – ranging from verbal harassment to threats of homelessness and physical violence – by a relative, most often their own parents, with two-thirds of them aged under 18 when the abuse first occurred, research for the anti-abuse charity Galop found. Continue reading...

Police on camels, a water slide into the Yarra – did you get got? Plus: the ones we wished were real, and the real news we were hoping was a jokeDid you hear about Melbourne’s latest tourist attraction? The lord mayor, Sally Capp, has announced a massive winter water slide that will operate in the city’s CBD, depositing thrill seekers into the murky Yarra River.And after a big day of water sports, kick back and watch one of the many new Australian shows airing on streaming service Amazon Prime. Continue reading...

Paul Troja, 73, was a passenger on board the aircraft, as investigators comb wreckage to determine cause of crash

Young First Nations people are 5.8% of population aged 10-17 but make up 49% of all youth in detention, report says

Suffragettes used to ‘chain themselves to Parliament House’, says one MP concerned by protest crackdown

Sydney can look forward to some sunshine from Sunday, but not before wind gusts of up to 100km/h and damaging surf

US says the invasion has been a ‘strategic disaster’ for Moscow and that Putin is isolated as peace talks are due to resume

Seedlings, apparently planted by anti-Covid mandate protesters, have been removed after speaker asked for ‘weed to be weeded’After a weeks-long illegal occupation that ended in a riot, New Zealand’s parliament has a new unwelcome visitor to contend with: cannabis seedlings popping up among its rose gardens.An eagle-eyed Wellingtonian spotted the tiny green leaves emerging from the soil this week and posted his find to social media. The man wished to remain anonymous, but a parliament groundskeeper confirmed to the national broadcaster, RNZ, that the plants were indeed “a few cannabis seedlings” thought to be left by the protesters. Continue reading...

House values up in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and the ACT, along with several regional areas

Report commissioned by city council says blood of enslaved people is ‘built into the very bones’ of the metropolisGlasgow authorities have apologised for the city’s role in the Atlantic slave trade, saying the “tentacles” of money from the practice reached every corner of Scotland’s biggest metropolis.The apology comes as Britain increasingly reckons with the legacy of its colonial past in the wake of global Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests. Continue reading...

MoD officials exploring legal challenges but Boris Johnson ‘full steam ahead’ with proposalA group of Tory MPs is lobbying Downing Street to consider commandeering one of the superyachts seized as part of the sanctions regime for use by the royal family.The idea has won favour with some senior figures in No 10, which was widely criticised last year after it commissioned a “national flagship” for state visits by the Queen, reportedly costing £200m. Continue reading...

Independent MP, who could hold balance of power, says she has ‘grave concerns’ over PM’s leadership and influence of the Nationals

Leaked document had suggested plans to ban practices were being ditched despite repeated promisesBoris Johnson has reportedly performed a hasty retreat after sparking a furious backlash after an announcement that ministers were abandoning plans to ban conversion practices.Conversion practices attempt to change or suppress a person’s sexuality or gender identity and Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May had promised to make it illegal. Continue reading...

‘At least I didn’t get up and slap anybody’, chancellor says in interview after tough weekRishi Sunak has compared himself to Will Smith as the chancellor defended his wife against criticism over financial links to Russia, saying: “At least I didn’t get up and slap anybody.”Sunak has come under mounting pressure over accusations that his wife is collecting “blood money” in dividends from a family company that continues to operate in Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...