Zahawi reviews policy after ‘hugely distressing’ case of Child Q, searched by police without parental consentThe government will issue “much tougher guidelines” on strip searches of children in schools, in the wake of the Child Q scandal.The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said he found the case of the child – who was subjected to an intimate strip search by police officers in her school when she was 15 without parental consent and in the knowledge that she was menstruating – “hugely distressing”. Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#5XJ43)
TfL exploring options after transport secretary blocks planned development on tube station car parkThe simmering row between London’s political leaders and central government over transport funding is escalating on a fresh battleground: possible legal action over suburban station car parks.London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has urged the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to rescind his decision to block a planned affordable housing development on a tube station car park. Continue reading...
A pioneering programme hopes to support children newly arrived in the UK until they can integrate into classroomsMany of the pupils who arrive in Gemma Patel’s classroom at Birmingham’s City academy don’t speak.“When students first come to us, they often don’t talk, they don’t communicate,” she said during a break from teaching a lesson on verbs. “It’s not because they can’t, but because they haven’t necessarily felt able to before.” Continue reading...
Exclusive: Workers report drops in pay and shift frequency, while others say petrol payments do not reflect soaring pricesTom* started working for Amazon as a delivery van driver in Norfolk nearly three years ago. Since then, his rates of pay have been revised numerous times, including at least four changes since September. He and his partner are probably going to have to abandon hopes of buying a home together, as the money Amazon had promised was not sustained.“All of us are constantly terrified of never having enough money to survive,” he said. “It really is the most toxic industry.” Continue reading...
Chems-eddine Hafiz says rightwing candidates are competing with each other to criticise Islam and MuslimsA rise in anti-Islam rhetoric in the French presidential election campaign risks creating a “spiral of hatred”, scapegoating law-abiding Muslims in a similar way to the discourse against Jews in the 1930s, the rector of the Paris mosque has said.“I’m extremely worried,” said Chems-eddine Hafiz, the rector of Paris’s historic Grande Mosquée. “We’re in a society that is fractured and searching for itself, a society that is weakened and fearful after the pandemic. The fact of looking for a scapegoat – there have been precedents to that: in 1930 when the finger began to be pointed at Jews who became ‘the problem of a whole society’ … Today it’s no longer Jews, it’s Muslims … I thought in the 21st century we’d be safe from that type of discourse.” Continue reading...
by Angela Giuffrida in Rome and agencies on (#5XJ33)
Robert Adela secures first mandate after replacing Joseph Muscat, who stood down amid fallout from Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murderMalta’s Labour party has claimed victory in a general election, securing a third term in government despite a legacy of corruption and after the lowest turnout in decades.If confirmed, this would be the prime minister Robert Abela’s first electoral mandate after replacing Joseph Muscat, who stood down as prime minister in January 2020 amid a government crisis stemming from the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Continue reading...
US secretary of state says there is no strategy for Russian regime change as Biden comments face criticismThe US has no strategy of regime change for Russia, secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters on Sunday after president Joe Biden said Russian Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”.His words came after Biden condemned Putin as a “butcher” who could no longer stay in power in a historic speech in Poland. Biden appeared to urge those around the Russian president to oust him from the Kremlin.Russia is trying to split Ukraine in two to create a Moscow-controlled region after failing to take over the whole country, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence said on Sunday.The Russian-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine could hold a referendum soon on joining Russia, the rebel region’s news outlet cited local leader Leonid Pasechnik as saying on Sunday.Russia struck military targets in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv with high-precision cruise missiles, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. Russia hit a fuel depot being used by Ukrainian forces near Lviv with long-range missiles and used cruise missiles to strike a plant in the city being used to repair anti-aircraft systems, radar stations and sights for tanks, the ministry said.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on the US and Europe to supply more planes, tanks, anti-missiles defences and anti-ship weaponry, arguing that Europe’s own security was at stake. “This is what is covered with dust at their storage facilities … this is all for freedom not only in Ukraine – this is for freedom in Europe,” he said in his nightly address.Two humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from conflict zones have been agreed for Sunday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said, including from Mariupol.Russia has started destroying Ukrainian fuel and food storage depots, meaning the government will have to disperse the stocks of both in the near future, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko has said according to Reuters.The Kremlin has again raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is deputy chairman of the country’s security council, said Moscow could use them to strike an enemy that only used conventional weapons.Russian forces appear to be concentrating their effort to attempt the encirclement of Ukrainian forces directly facing the separatist regions in the east of the country, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence report on the war in Ukraine.Ukrainian troops are reporting that Russian forces are deploying white phosphorus against them near the eastern city of Avdiivka. While these reports cannot be confirmed, Zelenskiy told Nato leaders earlier this week that Russia had used phosphorus bombs that had killed adults and children.Russian forces seized Slavutych, a northern town close to the Chernobyl nuclear site, on Saturday and took its mayor, Yuri Fomichev, prisoner. However, after failing to disperse the numerous protesters in the main square on Saturday – despite deploying stun grenades and firing overhead – the Russian troops released the mayor and agreed to leave. Continue reading...
Education secretary’s hint comes after reports chancellor will look again at a further council tax rebate after criticismRishi Sunak is planning further help with the cost of living, the UK education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, has said, adding that it would “irresponsible for me to say ‘job done’” days after the spring statement.Zahawi’s hint came amid reports Sunak will look again at a further council tax rebate in the autumn, after the chancellor was widely criticised for a statement that appeared to do little to ease the pressures of rising energy prices and inflation. Continue reading...
Unesco report finds that Covid school closures have made girls more vulnerable to gender-based violenceStudent strikes have forced a string of school closures across Chile’s capital amid growing anger over sexist and violent behaviour only weeks after the country returned to in-person classes after two years of Covid-19 lockdowns.“The demand is to stop the harassment,” said Javiera, 17, who was one of hundreds of girls to join protests outside the prestigious Santiago Lastarria school, after male students were found swapping intimate photos of their female classmates on Instagram. “We are demanding justice for victims, and for schools to stop protecting abusers.” Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#5XJ22)
Exclusive: Sophie Lancaster’s killer to be freed from prison but Sylvia says she has been given no explanationA mother whose 20-year-old daughter was kicked to death because she was dressed as a goth has said she feels “ignored” and “silenced” by the justice system as her killer is set to be freed from prison.Sophie Lancaster was murdered and her boyfriend badly beaten in what a judge described as a “feral” and “savage” attack by teenagers in Lancashire in August 2007. Continue reading...
Inflation and the cost of living crisis will drive employees in key sectors to look elsewhere for higher salariesHospitals, schools and the civil service will suffer a “mass exodus” of key staff unless millions of public sector employees receive pay rises that at least match the spiralling rate of inflation, union leaders warn on Sunday.After the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement offered no more money to public services last week, the prospect of long and bitter battles over pay look certain as the cost of living crisis grows. Continue reading...
The Canadian-American singer-songwriter on why she needed to tell a different story in her candid autobiographyThe rock autobiography is typically a male genre, telling tales of excess so competitive that readers could be forgiven for wishing Keith Richards, Neil Young, Roger Daltrey, et al, would break the monotony by taking up wood whittling.But now comes Martha Wainwright, whose autobiography, published this week, is a female-gaze account of what it takes to juggle relationships, familial and domestic circumstances with life under the stage lights. Continue reading...
Local authorities still see ‘the car as king’ and have been abandoning government plans for cycle lanes and pedestrian areasTransport officials have cut funding to three Conservative-controlled councils for failing to encourage walking and cycling amid a local Tory backlash against government-backed plans to reduce traffic and pollution.The Department for Transport (DfT) has been forced to reduce active travel funding to a string of councils after Tory councillors removed pop-up cycle lanes and pedestrianised areas before they had a chance to change the way people travel. Continue reading...
Rishi Sunak’s spring statement has fuelled cabinet tensions, with demands for spending on new nuclear projects and renewablesBoris Johnson is expected to hold crunch talks with senior cabinet ministers this week to resolve fractious talks over plans to tackle rising bills and boost the country’s energy security.The government’s energy strategy has been delayed by cabinet splits over onshore wind, funding for nuclear energy and the role fracking should play given spiralling energy prices and the Ukraine invasion. Continue reading...
A campaign has been set up by MP Stella Creasy to counter the ‘motherhood penalty’ in the party’s selection processA group of senior Labour women are to launch a new campaign to give mothers the resources to run for parliament, amid concerns that the prevailing Westminster culture puts women off standing while their children are young.In an attempt to revisit a successful campaign that helped boost the proportion of female Labour candidates in the 1990s, a group of MPs, former ministers and peers from the left and right of the party are backing a plan to end what they describe as a “motherhood penalty” in the party’s selection process. It follows claims by some potential candidates that they have been asked who is going to look after their children while they are fighting for a seat. Continue reading...
War in Ukraine and the pandemic make France’s presidential election hard to call, professor warnsA leading French political scientist has warned voters not to consider the presidential election a foregone conclusion, because anything can happen before the first round on 10 April.Dominique Reynié, head of the influential Fondapol thinktank, suggested it was dangerous for voters to not bother turning out just because opinion polls envisage a win for Emmanuel Macron. The combination of Covid and the war in Ukraine had made the election unpredictable, he said, admitting that even experts in analysing voting patterns could not reliably call the result. Continue reading...
Searchers find flight data recorder buried 1.5 metres underground by impact, after earlier recovering cockpit voice recorderBoth flight recorders or “black boxes” have been recovered from the crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 that killed all 132 people on board, Chinese state media has said.Searchers found the second box, the flight data recorder, on a mountain slope, buried about 1.5 metres underground by the impact, the state broadcaster CCTV said. The impact of the crash scattered debris widely and created a 20-metre deep pit in the side of the mountain. Continue reading...
Gerry Anderson never put a matriarch in his shows because his own mother rejected him, a new documentary revealsFrom Charles Dickens to Sylvia Plath to Eminen, many of the world’s most creative adults had a turbulent childhood. Now Gerry Anderson, the creator of Thunderbirds and Stingray, all of whose shows have no mother character, can be added to the list.Previously unbroadcast interviews reveal that Anderson’s work lacked matriarchal figures because Anderson was so traumatised by his own relationship with his mother. Continue reading...
Stewards sought on Facebook to replace crew members sacked without noticeOne of the maritime agencies recruiting workers for P&O Ferries is advertising for crew members, saying no previous experience at sea required.Union officials warn that P&O Ferries could be jeopardising safety after dismissing 800 crew members and replacing them with workers paid less than the minimum wage. One of the firm’s vessels has been detained at Larne in Northern Ireland for being “unfit to sail” because of concerns over training. Continue reading...
by Helen Livingstone (now); Vivian Ho ,Nadeem Badshah on (#5XH89)
Think tank says ‘increasingly static nature of the fighting reflects incapacity of Russian forces rather than any shift in Russian objectives or efforts’Russian ex-president and deputy head of the security council Dmitry Medvedev has said western sanctions against Russian businesses will not influence Moscow or prompt popular discontent.Reuters has published a summary of his comments, which were made in an interview with Russia’s RIA news agency: Continue reading...
‘Shortcut’ tunnel at Punggye-ri nuclear testing centre could see it operational within a month, sources tell South Korean news agencyNorth Korea may be making rapid preparations to carry out a nuclear weapons test for the first time in more than four years, according to a South Korean media report.The Yonhap news agency, quoting government sources, said North Korea appeared to be digging a “shortcut” to Tunnel 3 at its previously closed nuclear test site in Punggye-ri. Continue reading...
Justice secretary Dominic Raab’s proposals will ‘slash away’ at rights of ordinary people to challenge government, group saysAmnesty International has criticised plans by the justice secretary Dominic Raab to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights.
by Isobel Koshiw and Emma Graham-Harrison in Kharkiv on (#5XHPB)
In the second most shelled city in Ukraine, defiant residents are set on keeping their beloved city running Russia-Ukraine war: latest developmentsThe rubbish collectors in Kharkiv wear flak jackets now. Several of their trucks are peppered with shrapnel holes from shells that landed during their rounds. The bins they empty are packed with the shattered, twisted remains of homes destroyed by explosions.But still, every morning they go out to keep Kharkiv clean. Ukraine’s second city is perhaps the most-shelled target in the country after besieged Mariupol. Every day brings a hail of Grad rockets, cluster bombs, shells and missiles. Continue reading...
Transport worker died of Covid two weeks after allegedly being spat and coughed at by irate passengerThe family of Belly Mujinga, who died with Covid after she was allegedly spat and coughed at while working at a London station at the start of the pandemic, say they are still lacking key information nearly two years after her death.Their comments came as they marked her birthday on Saturday by adding a heart to the Covid Memorial Wall. Continue reading...
Man and woman pronounced dead at property in Sneinton area of cityTwo people have died after a large house fire in Nottingham in the early hours of Saturday morning, police and fire services have said.Emergency services were called to reports of a major fire at a terraced house in Whittier Road, in the Sneinton suburb of the city, at 12.43am. Continue reading...
Demonstrations come after the firm sack 800 staff and the European Causeway ship is detained for being ‘unfit to sail’Protests are taking place at UK ports over the sacking of hundreds of seafarers, as calls grow for a P&O Ferries’ boss to quit.The demonstrations come after a ship operated by the ferry firm was detained for being “unfit to sail”. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#5XH9K)
Which? says some of the devices sold by Amazon, eBay and Wish were not legally fit to be soldAmazon, eBay and Wish have stopped stocking some monitors that let people keep track of their blood oxygen levels after an investigation found they were not fit to be sold.The online marketplaces removed a number of pulse oxygen testing devices known as oximeters from sale after being alerted to flaws identified by the consumer organisation Which? Continue reading...
Deputy PM says proposals to replace the Human Rights Act will enable principle of free speech to be a legal ‘trump card’Dominic Raab has disclosed proposals to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights which he believes will enable the principle of free speech to become a legal “trump card”.Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, has argued that the plan will better protect the press in exposing wrongdoing and said he feared free speech was being “whittled away” by “wokery and political correctness”. Continue reading...
Metropolitan police say no arrests have been made and a crime scene remains in place at the addressA woman has been stabbed to death in east London while her children were at school.The alarm was raised at 4.06pm on Thursday after the 40-year-old failed to pick her children up from school, the Metropolitan police said in a statement. Continue reading...
Jason Kenney warns a far-right element could seize control in the coming weeks as United Conservatives hold leadership reviewAlberta’s premier has called fellow Conservatives “lunatics” who are “trying to take over the asylum” as a populist mutiny in his party foreshadows a bitter fight for the future of Canada’s Conservative movement.In a leaked recording of a meeting with caucus staff on Tuesday, Premier Jason Kenney warned a far-right element – skeptical of coronavirus measures and wedded to conspiracy theories – could seize control of the party in the coming weeks as the United Conservatives hold a leadership review. Continue reading...
Announcement marks turning point in the nearly 17-month war in the northern regionTigrayan rebels have agreed to a “cessation of hostilities”, marking a turning point in the nearly 17-month war in northern Ethiopia after the government’s announcement of an indefinite humanitarian truce a day earlier.The rebels said in a statement sent to AFP they were “committed to implementing a cessation of hostilities effective immediately” and urged Ethiopian authorities to hasten delivery of emergency aid into Tigray, where hundreds of thousands face starvation. Continue reading...
ONS says one in 11 people in Scotland had coronavirus in week ending 20 March – country’s highest figure since survey beganThe number of coronavirus infections across the UK rose by an estimated 1m compared with the previous week, with figures in Scotland at a record high, data from the Office for National Statistics has revealed.According to the latest information from the ONS, based on swabs collected from randomly selected households, an estimated 9% of the population in Scotland had Covid in the week ending 20 March, about one in 11 people. The figure is the highest recorded by the survey since it began looking at the situation in Scotland in October 2020. Continue reading...
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim responsibility for huge blaze days before F1 race is due to take placeA fire has erupted at an oil depot in Jeddah days ahead of a Formula One race in the Saudi city after what Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed was an attack by the group.The blaze – not immediately acknowledged by Saudi Arabia or its state-run oil company Saudi Aramco – was centred on the same fuel depot that the Houthis had attacked in recent days. Continue reading...
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