Trial begins into Italian stabbing that has cast grim spotlight on femicide

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Filippo Turetta accused of killing university student Giulia Cecchettin in case that has ignited calls for cultural change

A major femicide trial has opened in Italy, after the brutal murder of a university student by her ex-boyfriend that triggered outrage and national soul-searching over the roots of male violence against women.

The stabbing in November of Giulia Cecchettin, 22, a biomedical engineering student at the University of Padua, cast a grim spotlight on femicide in Italy, where the vast majority of victims are killed at the hands of their current or former partners.

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Harrods investigating if any current staff were involved in Fayed’s alleged abuse

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Exclusive: store issues new statement as lawyers describe redress scheme it has set up as attempted ‘whitewash’

Harrods is investigating whether any of its current staff were “directly or indirectly involved” in the alleged sexual abuse of women by its former owner Mohamed Al Fayed.

With more than 100 women having come forward to allege being raped or assaulted by the Egyptian tycoon, the luxury store said it had launched a review and was in direct contact with Scotland Yard.

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Reeves packs up her troubles until budget day and smiles, smiles, smiles | John Crace

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The chancellor beamed her way through a conference speech that offered hope at least but little of substance

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. If you had thought that maybe today was the day when you made that call to Dignitas, then think again. Cancel that flight to Zurich. At least postpone it. Things might not be quite as bad as you had been led to believe. Or rather, they are that bad but there is some small flicker of hope if you can hold on long enough. There will be pain in the short and medium term. There’s no avoiding that. Try to think of it as character building. But possibly, just possibly, you might come through. We happy few. Blinking into the light of the promised land.

This was Rachel Reeves’s day. And she knew everything was going to be just fine the moment she woke up to find that Liz Truss had posted yet another cry for help on X. You can now follow the Trusster’s decline in real time on social media. It’s got so bad that she now films herself in front of a bookcase where everything is arranged by colour. The kindest explanation is that she thinks she’s filming a hostage video and the books are a coded message for “I’m being held against my will”.

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Lack of City of London oversight hurting efforts to halt dirty money, FCA warns

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Bodies responsible for monitoring accounting and legal sectors not doing enough to stop money laundering, watchdog says

A lack of proper oversight across the City of London’s network of lawyers, bookkeepers and accountants is hampering efforts to crack down on dirty money being funnelled through the UK, the City watchdog has warned.

The latest report by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) flagged concerns over the work of the UK’s 25 professional bodies – which oversee the accounting and legal sectors – and found that some were spending as little as £73 a year on anti-money laundering supervision or were outsourcing it entirely to third parties.

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‘Octomom’ Natalie Suleman, mother of 14, welcomes her first grandchild

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Suleman, who made headlines for giving birth to the first surviving octuplets, announces granddaughter’s birth

Natalie (formerly Nadya) Suleman – the so-called “Octomom” – has added yet another young addition to her already impressively large family. The mom of 14 announced Sunday on her Instagram that she is now a grandmother to a baby girl.

Suleman, 49, accompanied the announcement with a photo of an infant’s tiny foot behind a pink baby blanket.

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Nottingham man smothered wife and killed himself over unfounded affair fears

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David Boulter, 60, killed Deborah, 53, at home despite no evidence of affair found by private investigator he hired

A man smothered his wife and then killed himself after hiring a private investigator to investigate unfounded fears she was having an affair, an inquest has concluded.

David Boulter, 60, killed his wife, Deborah, 53, at their home in Mapperley, Nottingham on 9 October 2023, after becoming convinced she was in a sexual relationship with a friend.

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, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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NYC Gridlock Alert Days start for 2024, as U.N. General Assembly enters high-level week – CBS New York

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  1. NYC Gridlock Alert Days start for 2024, as U.N. General Assembly enters high-level week  CBS New York
  2. UN general assembly to open amid fears of all-out war in Middle East  The Guardian
  3. Wars in Middle East, Ukraine poised to dominate high-stakes UNGA: ANALYSIS  ABC News
  4. NYC Gridlock Days 2024: Here's when to use mass transit beginning with the United Nations General Assembly through the holidays  ABC7 New York
  5. Brace for the slowest Manhattan traffic of the year. The UN is in town.  Gothamist
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Scotland could extend winter fuel allowance, Scottish Labour argues

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Further devolution next year will bring allowance under Scottish control just months before Holyrood elections

Scottish Labour believes access to the winter fuel allowance could be widened in Scotland as it tries to fight off its opponents’ attacks before the next Holyrood election.

Scotland will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood, eight months before a Scottish parliamentary election that Labour sees as critical to its revival.

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Japan Warns Russia Over Violating Airspace, Fires Flares for First Time – The Wall Street Journal

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  1. Japan Warns Russia Over Violating Airspace, Fires Flares for First Time  The Wall Street Journal
  2. Japan scrambles fighter jets that shoot flares to warn Russian spy plane to leave airspace  CBS News
  3. Japan says Russian patrol aircraft violated its airspace  Reuters
  4. Japanese warplanes use flares to warn a Russian spy plane to leave airspace  The Associated Press
  5. Japan fighters fire flares after Russian military plane enters airspace  The Japan Times
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Israeli strikes kill 492 in heaviest daily toll in Lebanon since 1975-90 civil war

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Israel says it has hit 1,300 targets in escalating conflict with Hezbollah, as tens of thousands flee their homes

At least 492 people have been killed and 1,645 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry has said, after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on alleged Hezbollah targets that left the country with its highest daily death toll since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Tens of thousands of people fled from south Lebanese towns and villages along the main road towards the capital, Beirut, in Israel’s most intense barrage in nearly a year of cross-border clashes, as sirens were also heard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. The Lebanese health ministry said 35 children and 58 women were among those killed.

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Anura Kumara Dissanayake: who is Sri Lanka’s new leftist president?

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JVP leader has positioned himself as opposite to political elites but not all have greeted his win with optimism

As he was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new president on Monday morning, Anura Kumara Dissanayake heralded a “new era of renaissance” for the country. Many believe Dissanayake’s election marks a significant political pivot for Sri Lanka, which has been ruled by a rotation of the same few parties and families for decades, leading to a continuing economic recession and deep-rooted mistrust of traditional political leaders.

Swathes of the population said it was the promise of change that brought them to vote for the leftist leader for the first time last weekend.

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Will Chandrababu Take His Oath At Tirumala Now?.. – Greatandhra

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  1. Will Chandrababu Take His Oath At Tirumala Now?..  Greatandhra
  2. Tirupati Temple 'Purified' Amid Row Over Animal Fat In Ghee For Laddoos  NDTV
  3. Subramanian Swamy files PIL in Supreme Court for court-monitored probe panel into Tirupati laddu row  Deccan Herald
  4. ‘I feel cheated’: row erupts in India over claims of beef fat in temple sweets  This Week In Asia
  5. Karnataka's Nandini ghee becomes exclusive supplier for Tirupati laddus  India Today
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Octopuses seen hunting with fish and punching fish that don’t cooperate – NBC News

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  1. Octopuses seen hunting with fish and punching fish that don't cooperate  NBC News
  2. Octopuses Team Up With Fish to Hunt, And Will Punch Them if They Act Up  ScienceAlert
  3. Octopuses and fish hunt as a team to catch more prey  New Scientist
  4. Punching Octopuses Lead Fish on Hunting Parties  The New York Times
  5. Octopuses recorded hunting with fish — and punching those that don't cooperate  Yahoo! Voices
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Tanzania opposition leaders arrested amid crackdown on dissent

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Protest had been planned against alleged disappearances and killings of government critics by security forces

Police in Tanzania have arrested three leaders of the main opposition party in a series of detentions to prevent a planned anti-government protest, the latest in a string of events that analysts and rights groups say erode hopes of a new style of politics under President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Freeman Mbowe, the chair of the Chadema party, was arrested on Monday in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, while speaking with journalists. The party’s deputy chair, Tundu Lissu, was taken from his home in the city in a fleet of 11 vehicles, the party said. Godbless Lema, a central committee member, was also arrested, police said.

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