Storm Hans causes havoc in Norway with heaviest rain in 25 years forecast

Landslides, a stranded town and two deaths so far reported as extreme weather sweeps across south of the country

A powerful storm has brought destruction to Norway, causing landslides and leaving an entire town stranded, as meteorologists warned of the strongest rainfall in a quarter of a century.

The storm – named Storm Hans – has killed two people, ripped off roofs and caused widespread disruption across northern Europe in a summer that started with wildfires across much of the region.

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Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

Proceeds from levy on interest rate income will be used to help mortgage holders and cut taxes

Italy has announced a one-off 40% windfall tax on local banks that have been accused of reaping billions in extra profit from rising interest rates.

The Italian government, which approved the surprise tax in a cabinet meeting on Monday night, said it planned to use the proceeds to support mortgage holders and cut taxes, at a time when rising rates have put extra pressure on households.

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French research centre behind controversial Covid paper found to have used questionable ethics processes

Institution used concerning approval procedures for hundreds of studies, review says

A major French research centre that produced one of the most widely cited and controversial research papers of the Covid-19 pandemic has been found by an international research team to have used questionable and concerning ethics approval processes across hundreds of studies.

The Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection, or IHU, is a large clinical research centre in the south of France. It was founded by Prof Didier Raoult, who was also director of the centre until August 2022, when he stood down ahead of the release of findings from a government audit that found the institute conducted trials “likely to constitute offences or serious breaches of health or research regulations”.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv claims to have foiled Russian hacking of armed forces combat system – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

Suspilne has this news roundup for the morning in Ukraine, gathering together casualty figures from across the country. It reports:

It is now known that nine people were wounded as a result of yesterday’s attack on Kruglyakivka in Kharkiv region, among them two rescuers and two policemen. Two other people died.

In the last 24 hours, Russian troops shelled Kherson oblast 68 times. In Kherson, residential areas and a “point of invincibility” were targeted. One person died, thirteen were injured.

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Small firms fear going bust as Amazon extends wait time for sale proceeds

Marketplace sellers in UK and rest of Europe say having to wait over a week means they will struggle to pay staff and loans

Amazon has told thousands of marketplace sellers in the UK and continental Europe it will hold on to sale proceeds for more than a week in a move that small businesses say could force them to go bust.

The company has written to sellers to inform them it will no longer credit their accounts as soon as a sale is made online but will do so a week after an item has been delivered.

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Ukraine creates database of art linked to sanctions-hit Russians

Corruption agency hopes portal will ‘make it difficult for Russian oligarchs to sell such assets’

From Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi to Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, it amounts to an art collection that could grace any gallery in the world.

But rather than being the highlights of a blockbuster exhibition at a major gallery, these are just some of the 300, and counting, pieces known to have been recently owned by Russian nationals under western sanctions that have been entered into a searchable database set up by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP).

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Norway to fine Meta $98,500 a day over user privacy breach from 14 August

Country’s data protection regulator said firm cannot harvest user information such as physical locations for showing targeted ads

Facebook owner Meta Platforms will be fined 1m crowns ($98,500) a day over privacy breaches from 14 August, Norway’s data protection authority told Reuters on Monday, a decision that could have wider European implications.

The regulator, Datatilsynet, had said on 17 July that the company would be fined if it did not address privacy breaches the regulator had identified.

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Tensions rise as Belarus begins military drills near Poland and Lithuania

Leaders of the two Nato countries say they expect provocations from their neighbouring Russian ally and Wagner fighters

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, as tensions heighten with the two Nato members over Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries who moved to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia.

Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Russia-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to avoid criminal charges.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine detains informer accused of helping Russia plot attack on Zelenskiy, says security service

SBU security service says detained woman was gathering intelligence on Ukrainian president’s itinerary as he visited Mykolaiv region

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader in occupied Donetsk, has said that travel by road in the region is safe, despite Ukrainian attacks on key bridges.

“At the moment, there are no queues, the situation is fully controlled, it is safe to move through the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic along the land corridor, relatively, as far as possible, quickly and comfortably,” Tass reports he said on Russian television.

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Moscow targets Kharkiv region in effort to regain ground from Ukrainians

Russia seeks to exploit situation as Kyiv’s counteroffensive concentrates on south and east of country

Russian forces claimed to have pushed the frontline back two miles in the north-east region of Kharkiv as a minister in Kyiv said the Kremlin was trying to take back the oblast almost a year after it was famously liberated by Ukrainian forces.

In the latest strikes on the border region, including the bombing of villages near the city of Kupiansk, two people were said to have been killed and three wounded, while a woman was reported to have died in an attack in Kherson in southern Ukraine.

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Hiker describes squalid conditions at evacuated Swedish mountain lodge

Airlifts were carried out from STF Kebnekaise in Lapland on Sunday after a stomach bug outbreak

A hiker has described squalid conditions at a mountain station at the foot of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest peak, in the days before it was forced to close due to a stomach bug outbreak.

STF Kebnekaise, a lodge in northern Lapland run by the Swedish tourist association, had to be evacuated on Sunday after attempts to manage cases of stomach sickness through quarantine had failed. The mountain station said on Sunday that it was not known how the outbreak had started.

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Spanish lottery ticket seller faces charges of defrauding winner of €4.7m

Man from A Coruña had been praised for trying to track down unclaimed ticket’s owner – whom police found

A lottery ticket seller hailed as a good samaritan 11 years ago for apparently trying to track down the owner of an unclaimed winning ticket worth €4.7m (£4.05m) faces a possible six-year jail sentence on charges that he defrauded the rightful owner of their winnings.

Police allege that Manuel Reija González, a ticket seller in the north-western Spanish city of A Coruña, told the winner of the lottery drawn in June 2012 that his ticket was worth just over a euro and then, with the help of his brother, who worked for the national lottery, attempted to cash in the ticket himself. Both brothers have denied any wrongdoing.

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Italian official rebuked for proclaiming innocence of Bologna terrorists

Marcello De Angelis, a communications chief for the Lazio region, said he knew the trio were not involved in the 1980 explosion

A senior regional official in Italy who used to be a member of a neofascist group has sparked anger after attempting to clear the names of three people convicted of one of the country’s worst terrorist attacks.

Marcello De Angelis, the communications chief of the Lazio region, made the remarks days after Italy marked the 43rd anniversary of the bombing of Bologna train station, in which 85 people were killed and more than 200 were injured.

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West African leaders to meet after Niger junta defies deadline

Ecowas to hold talks on Thursday as west African country ignores demands to reinstate ousted president

The West African bloc Ecowas will meet on Thursday to discuss the coup in Niger, as cracks appeared in its unity and the military junta in Niamey refused to cave in to international pressure to stand down.

The announcement that the Economic Community of West African States would gather in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, came hours after the coup leaders ignored a deadline to reinstate the ousted president after the power grab on 26 July – a move the bloc had earlier warned could lead it to authorise a military intervention.

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Sinéad O’Connor tribute appears in Ireland as funeral plans announced

Installation appears on hillside overlooking seaside town of Bray, where singer is to be buried

A fleeting installation honouring Sinéad O’Connor has been unveiled on a hillside overlooking the Irish seaside town of Bray, where she is to be buried on Tuesday.

A message in 30ft-tall letters spelling out “ÉIRE ♡ SINÉAD” that was visible from the air appeared on Sunday outside the County Wicklow town, south of Dublin, that was her home for 15 years.

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Bodies of woman and toddler found after migrant boats sink off Lampedusa

Italian coastguard says two bodies recovered, amid reports of at least 30 people missing from two vessels that sailed from Tunisia

The bodies of a woman and toddler were recovered by the Italian coastguard after two shipwrecks overnight off the southern island of Lampedusa.

Fifty-seven people were rescued and more than 30 were believed to be missing as of Sunday afternoon in what was described as “more tragic news” regarding those making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in search of refuge in Europe.

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Swedish mountain lodge closes as stomach bug spreads among hikers

Guests told to leave STF Kebnekaise mountain station and nearby campers evacuated from country’s highest peak

A popular lodge on Sweden’s highest peak has been forced to temporarily close after a stomach bug rapidly spread among hikers.

STF Kebnekaise mountain station, which lies at the foot of the 2,096m Kebnekaise massif, had quarantined several guests who had caught the bug in recent days but decided to take a more drastic measure after it was also detected in hikers camping in the area.

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US dispatches warships after China and Russia send naval patrol near Alaska

Combined naval patrol appeared to be largest such flotilla to approach US territory and ‘highly provocative’, expert says

The US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week.

The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Three dead in overnight shelling across Ukraine – as it happened

Kyiv says 70 drones, cruise and hypersonic missile were used in attacks by Russia

Japan’s prime minister has hit out at Russian threats to use nuclear weapons as the country marked the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima today.

Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and 74,000 in Nagasaki three days later, when the US dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities days before the end of World War II.

Japan, as the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings in war, will continue efforts towards a nuclear-free world. The path towards it is becoming increasingly difficult because of deepening divisions in the international community over nuclear disarmament and Russia’s nuclear threat.

Given this situation, it is all the more important to bring back international momentum towards realisation of a nuclear-free world. Devastation brought to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear weapons can never be repeated.

There is a real risk that the government’s general licence – or ‘free pass’ – for the legal sector encourages UK lawyers to adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach and keep profiting from working for clients sanctioned in relation to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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