PM urges climate ‘wake up’ amid floods; man mauled to death by dogs – as it happened

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fights extradition from Britain to US, where he is wanted on criminal charges. This blog is now closed

We now have more details from NSW authorities about the four-vehicle crash on Sydney’s Anzac Bridge shortly before midnight last night, which killed two people.

NSW police have named the two victims as a 25-year-old female from the local area and a 38-year-old man from Sydney’s south-west. A police representative has been speaking to reporters:

At about 11:45 last night, there was a minor collision on the Anzac Bridge involving two vehicles. A 25-year-old female and a 38-year-old male were exchanging details or doing what you need to do after you’ve had a minor collision.

At that point, there’s been another two vehicles that have become involved in that stationary collision. One was a taxi and the second was a Commodore. Tragically, the way those vehicles have collided into the stationary cars has impacted with the two pedestrians who were out on the road exchanging details and unfortunately those two people have been killed.

The last 12 hours have seen an absolute tragic number of road trauma incidents in NSW. Six people have lost their lives. Six families are grieving the loss of family members.

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Who are the female union leaders overseeing UK strike action?

Four women at some of the biggest unions are on the frontline of the fight for better pay and conditions

Christina McAnea is the general secretary of Unison, the UK’s biggest union. Brought up on Glasgow’s Drumchapel estate, McAnea left school at 16 to join the civil service, before going to university at the age of 22 and earning a degree in English and history.

A longtime union official, the no-nonsense McAnea has couched Unison’s demands for better pay and conditions for NHS workers, who include paramedics and ambulance staff, as a battle for the future of the health service.

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Families sue Indonesian government after 199 deaths from syrup medicines

Since August, 199 people have died of acute kidney injury, prompting an inquiry and ban on some medicines

A dozen families, whose relatives died or fell ill after consuming cough syrup medicines, have sued the Indonesian government and companies accused of supplying the products.

At least 199 people, many of them young children, have died as a result of acute kidney injury since August, prompting the government to ban some syrup medicines and launch an investigation.

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Charity urges Matt Hancock to do more to raise dyslexia awareness

Ex-minister claimed I’m a Celebrity appearance would raise profile of his dyslexia campaign but he only fleetingly mentioned it

A charity has called on Matt Hancock to renew his efforts to raise awareness about dyslexia after apparently only fleetingly addressing the issue on I’m a Celebrity.

The former health secretary defended his decision to take a break from Westminster and sign up for the ITV reality show in the Australian jungle by claiming he wanted to use it as a platform to raise the profile of his dyslexia campaign.

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Australia Covid cases rising but peak before Christmas still predicted

Infections climbing at slower pace than last month and death rate stable but experts say reporting changes making numbers harder to interpret

Covid cases are continuing to rise across Australia, but health authorities remain confident the peak will hit before Christmas.

Cases have more than doubled in New South Wales and Victoria compared with the beginning of November, and jumped by 20% nationwide in the space of a week. The numbers build on the increases recorded last week of 10-15%.

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US sees surge in children under five hospitalized for respiratory viruses

Wave of illness caused by RSV, influenza and other infections has seen more than three-quarters of pediatric hospital beds full

When his son was born seven weeks early, weighing only 2.5lbs, RH watched as the little boy stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for 37 days.

When they finally left the hospital, RH, who asked to use his initials for health privacy, breathed a sigh of relief. The baby, despite his difficult start, was perfectly healthy. But only a few months later, the child landed back in the hospital with a dangerous virus, RSV.

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Emergency care issues in England contributed to 200 deaths last week, says medical chief

Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’

More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”.

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Ambulance waiting times in England three times longer in some rural areas

Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts

Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.

The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.

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NHS England ad campaign hopes to change behaviours and relieve service

Exclusive: The Help Us Help You campaign by M&C Saatchi, worth up to £28.6m, encourages people to cut down on in-person GP visits

Plans have been drawn up to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed this winter by encouraging patients to “behave in ways they’ve not experienced before” and cut down on in-person GP visits, the Guardian can reveal.

An advertising campaign devised by M&C Saatchi, awarded a contract by NHS England worth up to £28.6m, suggested ways people could be encouraged to settle for a virtual appointment or visit a pharmacist instead.

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Parents refuse use of vaccinated blood in life-saving surgery on baby

New Zealand’s health services go to court over guardianship of four-month-old boy whose parents have not let heart operation go ahead

New Zealand’s health service has made a court application over the guardianship of a four-month-old baby whose parents are refusing to allow his life-saving heart surgery to go ahead unless non-vaccinated blood is used.

The parents of the baby discussed their son’s health situation and their medical preferences in an interview with an anti-vaccination campaigner.

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Ambulance workers across England to strike before Christmas

Thousands of staff including 999 call handlers and paramedics to take strike action over pay and staffing levels

Ambulance workers across England intend to strike before Christmas after voting in favour of industrial action over pay and staffing levels.

Unison said thousands of 999 call handlers, ambulance technicians, paramedics and their colleagues working for ambulance services in the north-east, north-west, London, Yorkshire and the south-west are to take strike action.

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Six in 10 older teens in England have ‘possible eating problems’

NHS Digital research reveals scale of issues, with even higher number of 20- to 23-year-olds affected

More than half of older teenagers and young adults in England have a problematic relationship with food, a major survey of young people’s mental health has found.

Six in ten (60%) 17- to 19-year-olds have “possible problems with eating”, according to research undertaken by NHS Digital, the health service’s statistical body.

One in four 17- to 19-year-olds have a probable mental disorder – up from one in 10 in 2017 and one in six last year.

Children and young people from households facing financial difficulties, such as those who cannot afford food, are much more likely to have mental health problems.

One in eight 11- to 16-year-olds, and 29.4% of those that age with a mental health disorder such as anxiety or depression, have been bullied online.

One in six 17- to 24-year-olds have tried to harm themselves.

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China sends students home amid calls for crackdown on protests

Authorities flood streets with police as top security body urges action against ‘hostile forces’

China has sent university students home and flooded streets with police in an attempt to disperse the most widespread anti-government protests in decades, as the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.

In an apparent effort to tackle anger at the zero-Covid policies that originally sparked the protests, authorities also announced plans to step up vaccination of older people.

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Australian government to crack down on nicotine e-cigarettes as rates of teen vaping skyrocket

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds many children do not know they are consuming highly addictive nicotine in vapes until it is too late

So many Australian children are now addicted to nicotine from vaping that the federal health minister, Mark Butler, will propose reforms aimed at curtailing the e-cigarette industry.

Many children do not know they are consuming the highly addictive chemical until it is too late, experts say.

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Plant-based diet can cut bowel cancer risk in men by 22%, says study

Researchers find no such link for women, suggesting connection between diet and bowel cancer is clearer for men

Eating a plant-based diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes can reduce the risk of bowel cancer in men by more than a fifth, according to research.

A large study that involved 79,952 US-based men found that those who ate the largest amounts of healthy plant-based foods had a 22% lower risk of bowel cancer compared with those who ate the least.

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Cannabis oil failed to improve pain or quality of life in palliative care cancer patients, study shows

Researchers say despite the lack of symptom relief, more trials are needed to focus on the targeted use of medicinal cannabis

The first high quality study looking at the impact of cannabidiol oil on palliative care patients with advanced cancer found it did not improve their pain, depression, anxiety, or quality of life.

Palliative care is one of the conditions for which medicinal cannabis has been approved in Australia.

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Covid blood-thinner drug treatment dangerous and does not work – study

UK government-backed Heal-Covid trial finds Apixaban can cause dangerous bleeding and does not improve prognosis

A blood-thinning drug given as a potential life-saver to many patients recovering from severe Covid does not work and can cause major bleeding, research shows.

The findings have led to calls for doctors to stop advising people to take Apixaban, because it does not stop them from dying or ending up back in hospital and also can have serious side-effects.

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Defence training pushed recruits beyond their limits with fatal outcomes, ex-soldier tells inquiry

‘Every year there was a suicide,’ James Geercke says on first day of royal commission hearings in Wagga Wagga

A former soldier says he and fellow Australian Defence Force Academy recruits were so traumatised by their extreme training regime they began hallucinating and some became suicidal.

James Geercke joined the academy in 2008 as an 18-year-old. On Monday, he told the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide that recruits were routinely pushed to their limits.

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In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Covid-19 Australia data tracker: coronavirus cases, deaths, hospitalisations and vaccination

Guardian Australia brings together all the figures on Covid-19 cases, as well as stats, charts and state-by-state data from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, the ACT and NT. Here you can also find the numbers on the vaccine rollout and fourth dose booster vaccination rates.

In September 2022, federal and state governments began releasing data once a week, on Fridays, rather than daily. As a result, Guardian Australia has aggregated the data released before that date to weekly values, to make the new figures comparable with the old.

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Poorer women in UK have sixth-highest cancer death rates in Europe, WHO finds

Those from deprived backgrounds are particularly at risk of dying from cancer of the lungs, liver, bladder and oesophagus

Poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe, an in-depth new World Health Organization study has found.

They are much more likely to die from the disease compared with better-off women in the UK and women in poverty in many other European countries.

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