Minors were at house party in a villa in Marconia di Pisticci in southern Basilicata region
Italian police have arrested four people in connection with the alleged gang-rape of two British girls in the south of the country.
The rape reportedly took place on Monday night at a house party in Marconia di Pisticci, a town of about 8,000 people in the Basilicata province of Matera.
Continue reading...UK study claims solidarity in early weeks of coronavirus pandemic has given way to distrust
Mask-wearing and lockdown rules are now causing deeper social fractures than Brexit, according to a UK-wide study which suggests that the solidarityof the early weeks of the pandemic has given way to distrust.
Polling of 10,000 people found that half of mask-wearers in Britain (58%) have severely negative attitudes towards those who do not wear a mask, and the majority (68%) of people who did not break lockdown rules have strong negative views about lockdown rule-breakers.
Continue reading...French cases near 10,000 in a day; single biggest rise in Greece; Portugal limits gatherings to 10 people; Mexico signs agreement for Sputnik V vaccine
Here’s a quick summary of the biggest developments before we head over to a new blog. Thanks for following along.
Brazil recorded 40,557 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 983 deaths from the disease, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The country has registered more than 4.2 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 129,522, according to ministry data.
Continue reading...The UK internal market proposals turn Britain into a country whose word cannot be trusted. Conservative MPs must use their power to stop this shameful plan
The damage is real, the damage is mounting and the damage must be ended as soon as possible. By trumpeting its readiness to override some of its treaty obligations towards the European Union, Boris Johnson’s government has cast Britain as a country that does not act in good faith and cannot be trusted to keep its word. The irresponsibility makes the Brexit process more difficult, triggering Thursday’s EU ultimatum to withdraw the plan. It subverts the rule of law at home and abroad. It pulls the rug from under Britain’s reputation everywhere from Ireland to Hong Kong, and wherever else people hope they can rely on Britain to play fair. The plans set out this week in the United Kingdom internal market bill read like an application for rogue state status.
The pushback against this law-breaking bill is already international. The government may have been relaxed about causing consternation in Brussels and exasperation in Berlin. But did it not stop to think of the impact on the politics of Ireland, north and south, or on already alienated opinion in Scotland and Wales, or on trade negotiators in Tokyo and other capitals? Did the government factor in the inevitably frosty response of the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, who is proud of his Irish ancestry and a friend of the EU, or of Democratic lawmakers (and some Republicans too) in Washington? Did it think about the multitude of other places around the world where goodwill towards Britain cannot always be assumed? Did it not realise that the promise-breaking would be welcomed by the likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, all of whom will feel that Britain has just made it a bit easier for them to go on defying the rules too? If ministers did not think of these things, they are fools. If they did, and still went ahead, they are rogues.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Scottish advocate general warned of breach of ministerial code but two other advisers disagreed, letter shows
A behind–the–scenes rift has emerged between the government’s top legal advisers over the legality of the decision to bring legislation that overrides the EU withdrawal agreement.
Legal advice contained in a three–page letter marked “official – sensitive”, seen by the Guardian, summarises the legal opinions of the government’s three law officers, whose role includes ensuring ministers act in accordance with the law.
Continue reading...Local route managers and signallers will be given more power to cut speeds or close lines
Heavy rain could lead to more trains being cancelled or told to travel at low speed in future, following the Stonehaven crash that killed three people in Aberdeenshire last month.
An interim report by Network Rail into the tragedy spelled out strengthened procedures that could hasten line closures in bad weather, pending safety inspections.
Continue reading...Actor who played Emma Peel in hit spy series and James Bond’s only wife was diagnosed with cancer in March
The actor Diana Rigg, known for her roles on stage and in film and television – including The Avengers and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – has died at the age of 82.
Rigg, who rose to prominence in the 1960s through her starring role as Emma Peel in The Avengers alongside Patrick Macnee, enjoyed a long and varied career, playing Lady Olenna Tyrell in HBO’s smash hit Game of Thrones, a show she admitted in 2019 that she had never watched. She also played Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, or Tracy Bond, James Bond’s first and only wife to date, in the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Continue reading...Martin Hairer takes $3m Breakthrough prize for work a colleague said must have been done by aliens
A mathematician who tamed a nightmarish family of equations that behave so badly they make no sense has won the most lucrative prize in academia.
Martin Hairer, an Austrian-British researcher at Imperial College London, is the winner of the 2021 Breakthrough prize for mathematics, an annual $3m (£2.3m) award that has come to rival the Nobels in terms of kudos and prestige.
Continue reading...Extinction rates for birds and mammals since 1993 would have been ‘three to four times higher’ without action
Up to 48 bird and mammal extinctions have been prevented by conservation efforts since a global agreement to protect biodiversity, according to a new study.
The Iberian lynx, California condor and pygmy hog are among animals that would have disappeared without reintroduction programmes, zoo-based conservation and formal legal protections since 1993, research led by scientists at Newcastle University and BirdLife International found.
Continue reading...Plan to provide rapid tests for 10 million people a day would be hugely costly – and the technology does not yet exist
They call it the “moonshot” – and it is as ambitious as any space adventure.
This is the name given to the government project that aims to ramp up testing to such a scale that it will return the country to some kind of normality. But is it feasible? And what about the cost?
Continue reading...PM believes huge rapid testing programme is ‘only hope’ before a vaccine, leaked document says
Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is “our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents setting out plans for “Operation Moonshot”.
The prime minister is said to be pinning his hopes on a project that would deliver up to 10m tests a day – even though the current testing regime is struggling to deliver a fraction of that number and is beset by problems.
Continue reading...Dallen died hours after the Guardian published piece that reflected on facing terminal illness
The family of a young man who wrote movingly of coping with terminal cancer against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have told of taking comfort from the huge response to his articles, after he died on Monday.
Elliot Dallen, 31, died hours after the Guardian published the second of two articles by him in which he reflected on his life and shared the lessons which he had learned.
Continue reading...PM pressed to help resolve asylum application for child’s father, who is now the boy’s sole carer
Boris Johnson has agreed to intervene in the case of Mercy Baguma, who was found dead in a flat in Glasgow two weeks ago next to her distressed one-year-old son.
Johnson was pressed by the Scottish National party MP David Linden at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday to arrange an urgent meeting with the home secretary to resolve the asylum application that has been pending for the child’s father, who is now the boy’s sole carer.
Continue reading...The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has said the government lacks competence when it comes to coronavirus testing and that this is leading to shortages
Continue reading...AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford pause vaccine trial again; Czech Republic battles surging spread; China stages celebration of beating virus
In the US, Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, is refusing to enforce a White House coronavirus taskforce recommendation to close bars and require people to wear masks after Covid-19 infections in some of the state’s cities surged.
Related: Iowa refuses to close bars and require masks as Covid-19 cases surge in cities
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund will sell 32m doses of the potential Covid-19 vaccine ‘Sputnik-V’ to a top pharmaceutical company in Mexico, Russia’s second vaccine export deal, a source close to the deal said on Wednesday.
Russia registered its first vaccine candidate, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, in August. Late-stage trials of Sputnik-V, due to involve 40,000 participants, were launched on 26 August.
Continue reading...UK government urged to attend trial on Sunday of British-Iranian dual national
Iran’s decision to press fresh charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is illegal and shows she is being held as a hostage, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has said.
He called on the British government to do everything possible to protect her, include demanding UK officials are allowed to attend her trial on Sunday.
Continue reading...As life expectancy stalls and infant mortality rises, abolishing Public Health England will only make things worse
In the midst of Covid-19 it is easy to forget that the country is facing not just one, but two, very badly managed public health emergencies. The substantial and largely avoidable death toll in the current epidemic is undoubtedly due to a series of ill-informed and inept decisions about how the country should respond to its greatest public health crisis in more than a century. But the virus’s task was undoubtedly made easier by a serious deterioration in the health of the population over the past decade.
Since the beginning of the 20th century life expectancy in England has improved consistently. Until the last decade that is. As a result of government policies over the last 10 years improvement in life expectancy has stalled, and for women in the most deprived areas it has actually fallen. The widening gap between life expectancy in the best-off and worst-off areas is now almost 10 years for men and seven and a half years in women. Similarly, the infant mortality rate for England and Wales reached its lowest point in 2014 and has been consistently higher ever since. Across a whole range of other public health indicators, such as drug-related deaths, sexually transmitted diseases and childhood immunisations, the position has been deteriorating.
Continue reading...Ad campaign promoting hygiene and social distancing will run across TV, radio, print and more
A new government campaign is being launched to remind people to wash their hands, cover their faces and keep their distance, in a bid to keep infections down as the winter months approach.
With the slogan “Hands. Face. Space”, advertising will run across TV, radio, print, social and digital display advertising, as well as on community media channels, the Department of Health and Social Care has said.
Continue reading...Altering terms of withdrawal agreement on Northern Ireland could damage relations under Biden presidency
Senior Democrats have warned that any attempt by the UK government to backtrack on the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland would jeopardize a future US-UK free trade deal and could hobble bilateral relations across the board if Joe Biden wins the presidency.
Biden, an Irish American, is a staunch defender of the Good Friday Agreement, of which the US is the guarantor, and which requires an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Boy charged after 15-year-old was shot near Kesgrave high school on Monday
A teenager has been charged with attempted murder and firearms offences after a 15-year-old boy was shot on his way to school.
Suffolk police were called shortly after 8.40am on Monday to reports that a teenage boy had been shot on a housing estate in Kesgrave.
Continue reading...