Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Canadian Joshua Boyle was described as manipulative and abusive to his American wife after they returned from Afghanistan
Canadian prosecutors have described Joshua Boyle as manipulative and abusive, dismissing the former hostage’s testimony as a “fictional, self-serving narrative” as the crown began its closing arguments in the high-profile trial.
On Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors attacked the credibility of Boyle, who, along with his American wife Caitlan Coleman, spent five years as captives of a Taliban-linked militia after they were kidnapped in Afghanistan.
Prince compares wife’s treatment to Diana’s as proceedings over private letter are announced
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has taken the unusual decision to sue the publisher of the Mail on Sunday after the newspaper published a handwritten letter she had sent to her estranged father.
The decision came as Prince Harry launched an extraordinary and highly personal attack on the British tabloid press and its treatment of his wife, saying he could no longer be a “silent witness to her private suffering”.
UK media freedom envoy speaks out after targeted killing of Jamal Khashoggi
A “glaring gap” exists in the world’s ability to investigate targeted state killings of human rights defenders and journalists such as Jamal Khashoggi, said Amal Clooney, the UK special envoy on media freedom.
She also said the UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard, who undertook the UN’s investigation into Khashoggi’s murder, “had been forced heroically to manage a large-scale investigation with ridiculously few resources”.
Labour claims that PM is aiming to invoke emergency powers using the Civil Contingencies Act
Boris Johnson is deliberately whipping up fears of riots and deaths so he can try to invoke emergency powers and avoid extending the UK’s EU membership beyond 31 October, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, claimed on Saturday.
After a week in which the prime minister was accused by MPs from all the main parties, including senior Tories, of inciting violence by accusing Remainers of Brexit “surrender” and “betrayal”, Starmer said it was part of an orchestrated plan to stoke a sense of outrage among Leave voters and create civil unrest, so an extension might be avoided.
Trial of a euthanasia activist who helped a tetraplegic, blind DJ to die may lead to new law
Italy’s constitutional court has ruled it was not always a crime to help someone in “intolerable suffering” commit suicide, opening the way for a change of law in the Catholic country.
Parliament is now expected to debate the matter, which was highlighted by the Milan trial of an activist who helped a tetraplegic man die in Switzerland.
Sandra Muller calls verdict in favour of Eric Brion ‘backwards step’ and vows to appeal
A woman who launched a French version of the #MeToo campaign to expose abusive male behaviour has been found guilty of defaming a media executive she accused of making lewd and sexist remarks.
Sandra Muller said Eric Brion had humiliated her with sexual remarks at a function in Cannes in 2012. She was ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to the executive and €5,000 in legal fees, and was also told to delete a tweet about him and publish the statements issued by the court on her Twitter account and in two press outlets.
After she was assaulted while unconscious, Miller’s life split in two. She became known as ‘Emily Doe’ – and her assailant served just three months in prison. Now she’s ready to tell the world who she really is
It has been just over three weeks since Chanel Miller allowed her name to become public and the 27-year-old is still trying to adjust. For a while, it seemed as if everyone she had ever known was going to email. “Hi! We were in bio-chem class together, how are you doing?!” she’d read. Or: “Hey, I always knew you’d write a book!” She smiles at the bleak comedy of a situation which no one, least of all Miller herself, knows quite how to handle. At some point in the emails, every sender would jettison the pleasantries and make the awkward turn towards saying: “I’m sorry.”
Around midnight on 17 January 2015, Miller was spotted by two students at Stanford University being sexually assaulted by a third student as she lay unconscious on the ground behind some bins. She was 22, a recent graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, working in her first job at a tech firm and living with her parents in Palo Alto. Earlier that evening she had, on a whim, agreed to accompany her younger sister to a fraternity party at Stanford University, a 10-minute drive from the house. By the early hours of the morning, Miller was in a hospital having her vagina and anus swabbed by police doctors – and 19-year-old Brock Turner was in custody.
Ruling in Freddy McConnell case is first legal definition of a mother in English common law
A transgender man from Kent who gave birth with the help of fertility treatment cannot be registered as his child’s father, the most senior family judge in England and Wales has ruled.
In the first legal definition of a mother in English common law, Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the high court’s family division, ruled on Wednesday that motherhood was about being pregnant and giving birth regardless of whether the person who does so was considered a man or a woman in law.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the final day of the supreme court hearing to determine if Boris Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament was lawful
From Joshua Rozenberg, the legal commentator
It looks as if Lady Hale hopes to produce a reasonably complete judgment over the weekend representing the view of the court — or of a majority if they are split. Individual sections could be written by different justices. Much better than a bald decision with reasons to follow.
Joanna Cherry says she would like the court to be as clear as possible about what should happen next if it finds against the government. She said parliament should sit again as soon as possible.
At the moment parliament is not due to reconvene until three weeks on Monday, 14 October.
Scottish lawyer at prorogation hearing says Johnson government has proved itself unworthy of trust
Boris Johnson’s government is unworthy of trust because it conspired to ensure that “the mother of parliaments” was closed down by “the father of lies”, the supreme court was told in an impassioned speech by a Scottish advocate.
In combative closing comments, Aidan O’Neill QC called on the 11 justices hearing the prorogation case to reject legal arguments advanced by the government that the courts do not have the power to intervene in the decision to prorogue parliament for five weeks.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including day two of the supreme court hearing to decide if Boris Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament was lawful
Eadie says even Lord Pannick, who represents Gina Miller, accepts that it can be legitimate for the executive to obtain political advantage from prorogation.
If this is the case, how can a court decide what level of political advantage is acceptable, and what level is not.
Prorogation has been used by the government to gain a legislative and so political advantage. One of the most notable examples of that was its use to facilitate the speedy passage of what became the Parliament Act 1949. Under section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911 a non-money bill could only be enacted without the consent of the House of Lords if it was passed in three successive sessions by the House of Commons. In order to procure the speedy enactment of the 1949 Act the government arranged for a session of minimal length in 1948. Parliament was prorogued on 13 September 1948 to the following day. Following the passage of the parliament bill by the House of Commons, it was then prorogued again on 25 October 1948. Accordingly, even if the prorogation under consideration in the present case was, as the claimant and the interveners contend, designed to advance the government’s political agenda regarding withdrawal from the European Union rather than preparations for the Queen’s speech, that is not territory in which a court can enter with judicial review.
This is from the FT’s legal commentator, David Allen Green.
Interesting that there is now not even any lip-service at the Supreme Court that the prorogation was for a new Queen's Speech
Government submissions seem to be that the prorogation power stands, whatever its purpose and effect
Suit contends whistleblower published Permanent Record ‘in violation of non-disclosure agreements’ with both CIA and NSA
The US government on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit against Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower, over the publication this week of his memoir.
Snowden, the suit contends, “published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA”.
Tesla CEO’s lawyers said ‘pedo guy’ is a common insult used when Musk was a child in South Africa and not meant to ‘accuse a person’
Elon Musk is continuing to try to wriggle his way out of a defamation lawsuit, claiming in a court filing on Monday that a tweet labeling a British diver “pedo guy” was not meant to actually accuse him of pedophilia.
The Tesla CEO is being sued over comments made in 2018 about Vernon Unsworth, a diver who helped rescue a team of young soccer players stuck in an underwater cave.
Commons Speaker issues direct challenge to ministers threatening to ignore legislation
John Bercow has threatened Boris Johnson that he will be prepared to rip up the parliamentary rulebook to stop any illegal attempt by the prime minister to take the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October.
In a direct warning to No 10, the Speaker of the House of Commons said he is prepared to allow “additional procedural creativity” if necessary to allow parliament to block Johnson from ignoring the law.
More than 115,000 people allege they were forcibly removed by colonial-era army
Thousands of Kenyans who say they were driven from their homes and abused under British colonial rule and subsequently faced hardship and poverty have called on the UN to launch an investigation into their treatment.
British and Kenyan lawyers submitted a complaint to the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of justice, Fabián Salvioli, on behalf of more than 115,000 people originally from Kericho county, who claim they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands by the British army.
A new book says the actor was scared of going on the record at first but then encouraged other women to speak out
Gwyneth Paltrow has been named a key figure in the New York Times story that first catalogued a series of sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and led to the film producer’s dismissal from his own company and subsequent prosecution.
In a new book titled She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey – the New York Times reporters whose story on 5 October 2017 triggered Weinstein’s downfall – Paltrow is said to have been “scared to go on the record but became an early, crucial source, sharing her account of sexual harassment and trying to recruit other actresses to speak”.
According to Microsoft’s president, the singer already had trademark issues with the company’s US version of the Chinese chatbot XiaoIce, before it was plugged into Twitter – and became a Nazi.
Taylor Swift has claimed ownership over many things. In 2015, she applied for trademarks for lyrics including “this sick beat” and “Nice to meet you. Where you been?” A few months later, she went further, trademarking the year of her birth, “1989”. We now know it didn’t end there. A new book reveals that, a year later, Swift claimed ownership of the name Tay – and threatened to sue Microsoft for infringing it.
In the spring of 2016, Microsoft announced plans to bring a chatbot it had developed for the Chinese market to the US. The chatbot, XiaoIce, was designed to have conversations on social media with teenagers and young adults. Users developed a genuine affinity for it, and would spend a quarter of an hour a day unloading their hopes and fears to a friendly, yet non-judgmental ear.
Ola Salem discusses the divorce case of Princess Haya, who fled to London. Why do royal women keep trying to escape the emirate? Plus John Marsden on the growing trend of toxic parenting
Over the summer, Princess Haya, the estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, asked an English court for a forced marriage protection order relating to their children and a non-molestation order after the breakdown of their marriage.
The Guardian reporter Haroon Siddique describes the court scene to Rachel Humphreys, while the journalist Ola Salem discusses previous attempts by two other princesses to flee the Dubai royal family, and looks at why this case is so significant for women in the emirate.