Satellite data shows temperature peaks are lasting longer and rising higher
North America endured the hottest June on record last month, according to satellite data that shows temperature peaks lasting longer as well as rising higher.
The heat dome above western Canada and the north-west United States generated headlines around the world as daily temperature records were shattered across British Columbia, Washington and Portland.
Continue reading...WHO reports measles outbreaks in eight African countries amid huge fall-off in jabs during Covid
Kenya has restarted its vaccination programme in an effort to tackle the re-emergence of measles, which has surged in the country during the Covid restrictions.
A 10-day campaign against highly contagious measles and rubella has begun to target 4 million children aged nine months to five years in 22 of Kenya’s 47 counties where outbreaks are highest.
Continue reading...Action follows Viktor Orbán passing law banning LGBT content in schools and mishandling of EU funds
Ursula von der Leyen is being urged to suspend EU funds to Hungary to force Viktor Orbán to address concerns over politicised courts and corruption.
MEPs who work on the European parliament’s budgetary control committee are calling on the European Commission president to use a newly created EU law to freeze payments to Hungary for “grave breaches of the rule of law”.
Continue reading...On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”
Related: Nightmare Scenario review: Trump, Covid and a lasting national trauma
Continue reading...From South Korea to Australia, authorities are struggling to contain the highly transmissible coronavirus strain that has caused a surge in UK, Europe and US
Countries throughout Asia Pacific – from South Korea to Australia – have been hit by a rise in coronavirus infections as the Delta variant threatens a new wave of the pandemic even in a region renowned for tackling the virus with a high degree of success.
China reported 57 new coronavirus cases in the mainland for 6 July, up from 23 cases a day earlier, the national health authority said on Wednesday. It was the highest daily tally of infections since 30 January.
Continue reading...Warning: graphic content Around 200 people told a royal commission they were abused by Dr Selwyn Leeks and others at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 1970s, allegations Leeks has denied
A New Zealand royal commission set up to investigate abuse in care says the country’s health ministry is still receiving complaints about a psychiatrist and others who allegedly tortured and abused patients at a hospital in the 1970s.
Around 200 people have alleged they were abused as children by Dr Selywn Leeks in the adolescent wing of Lake Alice psychiatric hospital but police and medical authorities failed to curb his career or investigate sufficiently.
Continue reading...Dutch police have detained three suspects after investigative reporter was shot in the street
Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries, known for his work in exposing the criminal underworld, has been shot and seriously wounded on a street in Amsterdam.
Three suspects were detained, including the possible gunmen, police said, without providing details.
Continue reading...The US president, Joe Biden, outlined new steps to reach unvaccinated Americans and noted that more than 160 million citizens will be vaccinated by the end of this week. New coronavirus cases and deaths are also down 90% since January, allowing Americans to start 'living their lives as they did before', he said.
'The bottom line is, the virus is on the run, and America is coming back, and we’re coming back together,' Biden said. 'But our fight against this virus is not over.' The White House said earlier today that it would expand door-to-door outreach efforts in communities with lower vaccination efforts
Continue reading...Military also accused of disappearing 24 people and presenting them as guerrilla fighters as part of false positives scandal
A Colombian court has accused 10 members of the military and a civilian of forcibly disappearing 24 people and murdering at least 120 civilians and falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters who had been killed in combat.
Related: The ‘false positives’ scandal that felled Colombia’s military hero
Continue reading...Protests across Spain after 24-year-old nursing assistant Samuel Luiz dies following attack outside nightclub
Spanish police have arrested three people in connection with the killing of a young gay man whose death in a possible homophobic attack over the weekend shocked the country and sparked nationwide protests.
Samuel Luiz, a 24-year-old nursing assistant, was out with friends in the Galician city of A Coruña in the early hours of Saturday when an argument started outside a nightclub.
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Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks on his administration’s ongoing efforts to vaccinate more Americans against coronavirus.
The Biden administration has already said it will launch more targeted outreach efforts in communities with lower vaccination rates, amid concerns about the spread of the delta variant of the virus.
The Hillbilly Elegy author turned Republican Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance has apologised for a former political position: critic of Donald Trump.
“Like a lot of people, I criticised Trump back in 2016,” Vance told Fox News. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”
Related: Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance sorry for since-deleted anti-Trump tweets
Continue reading...Party doxxes satirical editor, suggesting followers demand he ‘takes responsibility when he leaves his office’
Reporters without Borders (RSF) has criticised the far-right Spanish party Vox for suggesting that the head of an editorial group that publishes a satirical magazine that frequently lampoons the party be held to account for its content on the street outside his office.
On Tuesday, Vox’s official Twitter account published the person’s name and photograph, and accused the magazine, El Jueves, of “spreading hate against millions of Spaniards on a daily basis”.
Continue reading...Daniel Ortega’s continuing crackdown targets farmer activists, student leader and potential presidential rival
Nicaraguan police have arrested a half dozen more opposition figures, including the sixth presidential hopeful to have been detained in a crackdown that started last month.
Among those arrested on Monday was Lesther Alemán, a former student leader who returned to Nicaragua after exile but stayed in safe houses. Those detained also included the presidential contender Medardo Mairena and Max Jerez, another student leader.
Continue reading...Greece reports 1,797 new daily cases more than twice the 801 cases reported on Monday; curbs on nightlife in Catalonia to reduce impact of virus on young
Heathrow, the Gaucho restaurant chain and the City Pub Group are set to continue with mask-wearing rules despite government plans to sweep away most safety measures from 19 July.
Related: Heathrow and some hospitality in England to retain masks after 19 July
Good evening, Harry Taylor bringing you the latest coronavirus updates from the UK and around the world for the rest of tonight.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions – drop me an email to harry.taylor.casual@theguardian.com or via Twitter @HarryTaylr.
Continue reading...A landmark report by Human Rights Watch has detailed accounts of pro-democracy students and academics in Australia who are being harassed and threatened over their comments relating to China. In some cases, people have been doxxed, and others claim their actions have been reported to Chinese authorities. Reporter Daniel Hurst explains why academics and students are experiencing this harassment, and what Australia can do about it
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Continue reading...Critics say government not doing enough to help neighbour as record cases deplete oxygen supplies
The Australian government has been urged to rapidly step up its assistance to Indonesia, amid warnings the sharp rise in Covid-19 cases is fuelling an “escalating crisis right on our doorstep”.
With aid groups fearing the Indonesian health system is on the verge of collapse, and with oxygen and bed shortages reported in some hospitals, there are growing calls for the Morrison government to help its most populous neighbour.
Continue reading...Mary Simon takes post at time of strained relations between Canada and First Nations after discoveries of unmarked graves
Canada will have its first ever Indigenous governor general after prime minister Justin Trudeau appointed Inuk leader Mary Simon as the Queen’s representative in Canada.
Describing the move as a “historic” step, Trudeau announced Simon’s appointment on Tuesday after coming under mounting pressure to choose a new viceregal. His previous selection resigned after allegations of bullying in January.
Continue reading...The director has spoken about race at the Cannes film festival, where he is the first black president of the Palme d’Or jury
Spike Lee commented on the US’s current racial justice crisis in typically forthright fashion at the Cannes film festival on Tuesday, saying he hoped the time had come that “black people will stop being hunted down like animals”.
Lee, who is the president of the jury that will pick the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, was speaking at the jury’s press conference on the first day of the festival. Having been asked a question about his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, which contains a scene in which a black youth, Radio Raheem, is killed by police, Lee responded: “I wrote it in 1988. When you see brother Eric Garner, when you see king George Floyd murdered, lynched, I think of Radio Raheem; and you would think and hope that 30 motherfucking years later, that black people stop being hunted down like animals.”
Continue reading...Distraught parents have gathered outside a boarding school in north-western Nigeria after gunmen kidnapped 140 children, the latest in a wave of mass abductions targeting schoolchildren and students in the country. About 1,000 students and pupils have been abducted in Nigeria since December, with most eventually released after negotiations with local officials. Monday’s raid at the Bethel Baptist high school was at least the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state over the period
Continue reading...Political rivals and human rights campaigners criticise use of inflammatory campaign material by Vox party
Human rights groups and politicians in Spain have spoken out after a court ruled that a controversial and false election poster for the far-right Vox party should not be withdrawn because it is legitimate political expression, and because the unaccompanied foreign minors it depicts in a relentlessly negative light are “an obvious social and political problem”.
The poster, which Vox used as part of its campaign in May’s bitterly contested Madrid regional election, was put up in a busy rail station in the capital and shows a hooded and masked dark-skinned youth alongside a white Spanish grandmother. It incorrectly suggests that refugee and migrant children in state care receive 10 times more in benefits each month than the average Spanish grandmother does in pension payments.
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