Judges hail Sofia Demetriades’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto as full of insights, poetry and maturity
A teenage violinist has won the BBC Young Musician competition 2026, in the first all-female final in the competition’s 48-year history.
The judges, Joanna MacGregor, Ben Gernon and Errollyn Wallen, hailed Sofia Demetriades’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto as full of insights, poetry and maturity.
Continue reading...Editor, agony uncle, crossword compiler – he even interviews himself. Our sketchwriter finds there’s no end to Farage’s talents
Welcome to your new super, soaraway Reformer. The paper that aims to take you back to the 1950s with all the stories that the mainstream media don’t want you to read. Free to all patriots. And those who happen to have found a copy on the floor of the bus.
Continue reading...Independent outlet, whose former editor Dmitry Muratov won Nobel prize, cites intolerable pressure from authorities
Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent media outlets, has announced it will permanently close next month. The newspaper, whose former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021, cited intolerable pressure, including being stripped of its newsroom, its donation platforms and its legal right to publish.
“This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” wrote its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, on the newspaper’s website.
Continue reading...Sanrio ends association with TV drama Vivant after China says portrayal of ruthless Chinese agents is ‘deliberate smear’
The company behind the successful Hello Kitty franchise has apologised and ended its commercial tie-up with a Japanese TV drama after Chinese state media and netizens condemned the show’s “deliberate smears” against China.
Sanrio, a Japanese firm whose characters are popular around the world, said in a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo that it had decided to end its association with the TV drama Vivant after concluding that it “contained elements inconsistent with Sanrio’s core values”.
Continue reading...Daily Mail reporters and their families fled homes after far-right activist targeted them over coverage
The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been found guilty of harassing two journalists to the point where it caused them fear of violence.
Journalists from the Daily Mail and their family members fled their homes after “bullyboy, intimidatory tactics” were deployed by Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon, his trial was told.
Continue reading...Warnings of escalating clampdown on press freedom come after Cairo court convicts Attalah of managing an unlicensed website
Lina Attalah, a prominent Egyptian journalist and the editor-in-chief of the news outlet Mada Masr, has been released from detention by Egypt’s authorities and had her website ordered to be shut down by a court amid an intensifying crackdown on independent media in the country.
Attalah was taken briefly into custody after a Cairo court convicted her of managing an unlicensed website, prompting fresh international concerns over press freedom in Egypt.
Continue reading...Jones, 85, has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching
Listen to the podcast Alan Jones on Trial
The mother of the youngest alleged victim of Alan Jones continued to seek advice from the broadcaster after the teenager was allegedly indecently assaulted at Jones’s Fitzroy Falls farm, a Sydney court has heard.
The divorced mother told the Downing Centre court she had developed a pattern of not trusting herself and she continued her correspondence with Jones because: “I knew he knew about everything; he had an opinion about everything.
Continue reading...Fox News and others have toed president’s line – seemingly hoping unrest abroad will make people vote Republican
Donald Trump sought to capitalize on the scenes of unrest in France, telling a crowd in Kansas on Monday that “migrants” and “communists” were responsible, and that the scenes were “what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America”.
As Republicans struggle to convince voters across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, Trump’s allies in the conservative media have followed suit, seemingly hoping that the scenes in France can scare people to the polls.
Continue reading...Party given additional penalty by Electoral Commission for not paying original fine on time
Reform UK has been fined more than £2,000 for failing to declare it was the publisher of campaign material seen by voters – including an additional penalty for failing to pay on time.
Nigel Farage’s party was sanctioned by the Electoral Commission after four items of elections material were missing an “imprint” – a declaration of the publisher so voters know who has paid for the promotional message.
Continue reading...Jan Crawford had praised man who asked Democratic candidate whether he would disavow Muslim Brotherhood
CBS’s chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford has apologized for and deleted a social media post praising a man who questioned Democratic Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about the Muslim Brotherhood during a town hall on Saturday.
On Sunday, Crawford, who initially joined CBS in 2009, wrote on X: “Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall. I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize.”
Continue reading...As Mark Cocker approaches a landmark for the world’s oldest column in an English-language newspaper, he is still inspired by powerful encounters with nature
In the autumn of 1987, Mark Cocker sat in a field near Norwich and watched a jay burying acorns for the long winter ahead. He described the scene in his first country diary for the Guardian. Thirty-nine years on, some of those jay-planted acorns will be mature oaks now, and Cocker is completing his 1,000th diary for the world’s oldest column in an English-language newspaper.
In his next diary, he will reflect on the changing birdlife around Flint Clough, in the Peak District, where he first marvelled at rare birds aged 12 after devouring bird books in his bedroom. As a boy, he would find cuckoo, golden plover, ring ouzel and twite, a once-common bird which is now virtually extinct in England.
Continue reading...Settlers hurl rocks at Palestinians and beat photographer Heidi Levine as part of yearly attacks to disrupt harvest
Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in a coordinated movement to disrupt the annual olive harvest, burning cars and trees and injuring Palestinians and a Washington Post photographer.
Masked settlers wielding clubs and other weapons attacked people attempting to harvest their olives in West Bank towns on Friday. Palestinian authorities said they recorded attacks in eight villages, and injuries among at least 20 people.
Continue reading...Founder of influential Rybar blog detained after warnings of attempts to destabilise Balkan country, officials say
A leading pro-Kremlin Russian military blogger with reported ties to Russia’s intelligence services has been arrested in Montenegro, after warnings of attempts to destabilise the Balkan country, officials have said.
Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the influential Rybar war blog, was detained on Friday alongside his wife and three other Russians by police and security agents in the Adriatic resort town of Risan, on suspicion of spreading Russian influence, local media reported.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 10-year sponsorship extension at a 50% premium on last agreement crowns bonanza year for live venue
O2 has struck a record £200m deal to retain the naming rights to the London venue the O2 in what is thought to be the largest renewal of its kind in UK history.
The 10-year agreement will extend O2’s relationship until at least 2038. It cements the sponsorship as the second longest-running UK stadium naming rights deal after Arsenal’s partnership for the football club’s London ground,
Continue reading...Journalists call for urgent amendment to special operations bill, which increases police search and seizure powers
Journalists in Trinidad and Tobago have called for an urgent amendment to a sweeping new bill that increases police powers of search and seizure, which they argue threatens the country’s much-vaunted freedom of the press.
The government says the special operations bill 2026, passed on 24 September, is designed to tackle alarmingly high crime and murder rates in the Caribbean nation.
Continue reading...Journalists call for urgent amendment to special operations bill, which increases police search and seizure powers
Journalists in Trinidad and Tobago have called for an urgent amendment to a sweeping new bill that increases police powers of search and seizure, which they argue threatens the country’s much-vaunted freedom of the press.
The government says the special operations bill 2026, passed on 24 September, is designed to tackle alarmingly high crime and murder rates in the Caribbean nation.
Continue reading...Redundancy process suggests home of Gavin and Stacey and Fleabag could go online-only again in £500m cuts push
The BBC has started a redundancy process in its TV and streaming division, heightening staff fears that Matt Brittin will announce the closure of the poorly performing BBC Three and BBC Scotland channels next week.
The corporation’s director general, who has repeatedly said that linear TV and radio services may have to shut as audiences move online, is expected to inform staff on Wednesday of the latest stage of a plan to save £500m and shed up to 2,000 jobs.
Continue reading...The Traitors and big film shoots help boost economy but some highlight lack of opportunities for local talent
Scotland’s striking Ardross Castle, the oldest star of The Celebrity Traitors, which kicks off on Thursday night, is just one of the stops on the Scottish tourist board’s “screen tourism” trail. From Outlander and The Odyssey filming in the Highlands and islands, to Glasgow city centre standing in for New York and Gotham City in the latest instalments of Indiana Jones and Batman respectively, film and TV is increasingly big business in Scotland.
The country’s screen sector, growing year on year, is projected to be worth £1bn to the economy by 2030. But while some have celebrated the upsides of a booming production sector, others highlight a lack of opportunities for Scottish talent and the challenges of excessive tourism in areas featured on screen.
Continue reading...US district judge orders temporary lifting of Trump’s ban on the three media outlets, saying it was likely unconstitutional
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore White House access to journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico, saying his ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional.
US district judge Tim Kelly issued his order in a lawsuit that the news organizations filed contesting the ban that the president announced on 18 September.
Continue reading...Media workers are grappling with increasingly volatile press climate in US, with some detained and even deported
As hundreds of masked and armed US federal agents besieged the streets of Minneapolis, turning the midwestern city into the frontline of the Trump administration’s unprecedented crackdown on immigration, the independent photographer John Abernathy was documenting one of the protests that had become a daily occurrence when Immigration and Customs Enforcement tackled him.
A photograph of him on the ground, pepper spray running down his face, captured the violence with which ICE agents had for weeks treated immigrants and the thousands of US citizens who had come to their defence. It was also a stark reminder that journalists were not immune to the agency’s aggressive tactics.
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