Prince Harry to continue lawsuit against Sun publisher, high court hears

Duke is ‘one of two claimants whose claims are still live’ against NGN, court told, the other being ex-MP Tom Watson

The Duke of Sussex is continuing his lawsuit against the publisher of the Sun over allegations of unlawful information gathering, the high court has heard.

Prince Harry “is one of two claimants whose claims are still live” against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), his barrister David Sherborne said, with the other being the former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson. The court was told 39 cases had been settled since a previous hearing in July.

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Trial will link senior civil servants’ pay to performance, says UK minister

Move intended to boost standards and attract recruits from private sector criticised as ‘tinkering’ by FDA union

Senior civil servants are to have their pay linked to their performance in a move criticised as divisive by a leading union.

John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, announced the trial of performance-related pay for some senior civil servants to come in by the summer, which he said would improve standards.

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Israel reportedly deploys extra weapons for assumed Rafah offensive

IDF confirms buying thousands of tents for evacuation, raising fears over long-threatened attack

Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.

Israeli daily Ma’ariv also said on Wednesday that troops had been put on alert and “the governing principle of the operation” had been approved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general staff and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister. The IDF declined to comment on the reports.

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Sweden passes law lowering age to legally change gender from 18 to 16

Proposal sparked intense debate in country but passed with 234 votes in favour and 94 against

Sweden’s parliament has passed a law lowering the minimum age to legally change gender from 18 to 16 and making it easier to get access to surgical interventions.

The law passed with 234 votes in favour and 94 against in Sweden’s 349-seat parliament.

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Three former senior Lib Dems sue Sun and NoW publisher over phone hacking

Exclusive: Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and Norman Lamb claim they were targeted for stories or to 'exert political influence’

Two former Lib Dem cabinet ministers and a former party whip are suing the publisher of the Sun and the defunct News of the World, claiming that their phones were hacked for stories or to “exert political influence”, including when Rupert Murdoch was seeking approval for a takeover of BSkyB.

Journalists working at Murdoch’s newspapers are said to have unlawfully targeted the former business secretary Vince Cable as well as Chris Huhne, a former energy and climate change secretary, and Norman Lamb, a whip and sometime adviser to the then deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

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The Sun always backs the winner: can the Murdoch papers warm to Keir Starmer?

Former DPP Starmer tried to send head of News UK Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking 10 years ago

Ten years ago Keir Starmer attempted to send Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking.

Now Starmer could cause another headache for the boss of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire. She has to work out how her Tory-backing newspapers – which include the Sun and the Times – handle the growing popularity of the man who is favourite to become the next prime minister.

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Hugh Grant brings phone-hacking claim against the Sun

Ten years after settling case against News of the World, actor now taking action against another Rupert Murdoch title

Hugh Grant is leading a renewed attempt to prove phone hacking took place at the Sun, even as Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper continues to maintain no illegality took place there.

The actor has followed Paul Gascoigne and Sienna Miller in bringing a so-called “Sun-only” phone-hacking claim, specifically alleging that illegality took place at the daily tabloid in the 2000s. Rebekah Brooks, the current chief executive of Murdoch’s News UK business, was editor of the Sun during the period in question.

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BBC inquiry dismisses Rupert Murdoch complaints about documentary series

Complaints unit backs makers of Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, except over section on Tory ‘sleaze’ stories

Rupert Murdoch has largely lost a year-long dispute with the BBC after he objected to a documentary series that “implied he posed a threat to liberal democracy”.

Murdoch’s News UK business complained that a BBC Two documentary unfairly suggested the Australian-born media mogul “exercised malign political influence” through his ownership of news outlets. It said the BBC programme was biased and failed to give enough weight to more positive appraisals of Murdoch’s career.

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Rupert Murdoch writes down value of Sun newspapers to zero

Move follows £200m loss caused by Covid-19 pandemic and one-off charges related to phone hacking

Rupert Murdoch has written down the value of the Sun newspapers to zero as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic helped to fuel a £200m loss at his flagship tabloid titles.

Advertising and sales revenues at the Sun and the Sun on Sunday plummeted, with turnover falling by 23% from £419.9m to £324m in the year to the end of June 2020.

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Amber Heard said Johnny Depp tried to suffocate her with pillow, court told

Makeup artist says she concealed Heard’s cut lip and bruises after alleged attack

Amber Heard had a cut lip and bruises that she said had been inflicted by Johnny Depp, who she said had tried to suffocate her with a pillow, Heard’s regular makeup artist has told a court.

Giving evidence via video link from California, Mélanie Inglessis said she was called by Heard to the Hollywood couple’s penthouse apartment in Los Angeles in December 2015 and helped to conceal the injuries so that Heard could appear on a US chat show the next day apparently unblemished.

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Amber Heard says she punched Johnny Depp to defend her sister

Actor tells court she feared Depp would push her sister down the stairs like he allegedly did to Kate Moss

Amber Heard has admitted punching her ex-husband Johnny Depp, saying it was to prevent him from pushing her sister down a flight of stairs and claiming he had previously done this to his ex-girlfriend Kate Moss.

Giving evidence for a second day at the high court in London, Heard recalled an incident in March 2015 in the couple’s Los Angeles penthouse when she struck Depp because, she said, she wanted to protect her younger sister Whitney.

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Amber Heard stole my sexual assault story, ex-aide tells libel trial

Kate James also says she often received abusive text messages from Johnny Depp’s ex-wife

Amber Heard’s former personal assistant has accused the actor of stealing her own experience of being a victim of sexual violence and twisting it into a different story.

In evidence given remotely from Los Angeles, Kate James also said she had regularly received a barrage of drunken, abusive and incoherent text messages from Heard between 2am and 4am.

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Johnny Depp told bodyguard that Amber Heard ‘cut my finger off’

Malcolm Connolly invented story that the actor damaged his hand himself, court hears

Johnny Depp’s bodyguard has said the actor initially made up an excuse after his wife allegedly severed his finger during a row because victims often try to protect their abusers.

Giving evidence in Depp’s libel action against the Sun over an article that labelled him a “wife beater”, Malcolm Connolly was questioned about an incident in 2015 when Depp and his then wife, Amber Heard, were in Australia for the filming of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Depp has accused Heard of cutting off the tip of his finger when she hurled a vodka bottle, but wrote at the time that he had caused the injury himself.

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Johnny Depp’s barrister tells court Amber Heard invented abuse claims

Libel case against Sun newspaper over term ‘wife-beater’ begins in UK high court

Amber Heard, not Johnny Depp, was the one who started fights during their marriage, the high court has been told at the start of a libel battle involving the divorced Hollywood actors.

It was Heard who was “the abuser” and who invented claims that her former partner was a “wife-beater”, according to an opening statement submitted to the court by Depp’s barrister, David Sherborne.

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Amber Heard can be in court for Johnny Depp’s evidence, high court rules

Judge says it would be unfair to stop Heard watching Depp give evidence in libel case over domestic abuse claims

Johnny Depp has failed to stop his ex-wife Amber Heard from watching him give evidence in a libel case over allegations of domestic abuse.

The actor is suing the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article which described Depp as a “wife beater”.

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BBC director general candidate accused in phone-hacking case

Exclusive: Former newspaper executive Will Lewis allegedly played part in email deletions

The former senior newspaper executive William Lewis, on the shortlist to be the next director general of the BBC, has been accused of playing a part in the concealment and destruction of vast amounts of emails relating to phone hacking by the publisher of the Sun and News of the World, according to high court documents made public on Wednesday.

Lewis, who ended a six-year stint as the chief executive of the publisher of the Wall Street Journal this month, has been named in the case being lodged by about 50 alleged victims of phone hacking against the publisher News Group Newspapers. NGN is a subsidiary of News UK, which is run by Rebekah Brooks and ultimately controlled by Rupert Murdoch, through the parent company News Corporation.

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Meghan gets twice as many negative headlines as positive, analysis finds

Guardian analysis appears to support claim Duchess of Sussex receives more critical treatment than Duchess of Cambridge

The Duchess of Sussex gets more than twice as many negative headlines as positive ones, according to Guardian analysis of articles published between May 2018 and mid January 2019.

The analysis – which appears to support Meghan’s argument that she has faced highly critical treatment in the British press – found that of the 843 articles in 14 print newspapers since mid-May 2018, 43% were negative. Just 20% of the articles were positive, with the remaining 36% remaining neutral.

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