‘Friday afternoon fraud’: warning for UK homebuyers on bank scams

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Victims have lost tens of thousands – and in one case £300,000 – due to fake emails from solicitor or estate agent

You are poised to move house and are awaiting the solicitor’s instructions that things are ready to go and it is time to hand over your deposit. When the email arrives giving you their bank details, you set up the transfer and move the cash. And then the solicitor calls to ask where the money is.

Conveyancing fraud involves criminals getting access to an email chain between homebuyers and their solicitors or estate agents and requesting payment to a bank account they control. Sometimes the solicitor has been hacked, but often the homebuyer has been the victim of a phishing exercise.

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Burnham expected to give mayors new powers over local planning decisions

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Move would allow mayors to greenlight large-scale developments and have more say on national housing funding

Andy Burnham is expected to give mayors new powers to take control of local planning decisions and greenlight large-scale developments in proposals to be presented next week.

The move would allow mayors to “call in” the decisions and direct councils to take them forward or refuse them.

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Swans fans turn up to support women’s team – as it happened

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Victorian Labor expands on free dental care election promise

The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, and health minister, Ingrid Stitt, have held a press conference this morning off the back of their announcement yesterday that the Labor government would open 10 free public dental clinics if re-elected in November.

You can’t use a Medicare card for dental unless you’ve got a healthcare card or you are a category of a particular citizen, it is very difficult … I’ve been visiting a lot of dentists over the past few weeks. There [are] waiting lists. People are in enormous, unbearable pain.

This will be a cost of living measure but it will also make sure that we deal with the healthcare of some of the most vulnerable Victorians. This is really going to fill the gap that’s been there for decades.

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Liberal plan to split Victorian appeals court attacked as ‘thought bubble’ that would politicise judiciary

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Opposition leader Jess Wilson says new dedicated court of criminal appeal would set precedents for tougher sentences

A radical overhaul of Victoria’s highest court, proposed by the Liberal party to increase sentences, has been criticised by legal and human rights groups who warn it would politicise the judiciary.

The opposition leader, Jess Wilson, on Sunday announced that if elected in November the Coalition would split the court of appeal in two, creating a dedicated court of criminal appeal alongside a separate court of civil appeal.

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The ‘ordinary’ woman accused of assassinating a Russian commander in Crimea

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Friends close to Margarita Reutt are shocked she could allegedly plant bomb that killed Ukrainian defector Robert Shageev, while others recall a stubborn grit to see any plan through

It was just after dawn in Sevastopol when a powerful explosion tore through a quiet square in a residential district of the Russian-occupied Crimean port city.

Hidden inside a rubbish bin, a bomb containing the equivalent of about 500g of TNT detonated on 13 August as Robert Shageev, the deputy commander of a Russian Black Sea fleet submarine brigade, walked past in naval uniform. He was killed on the spot.

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Iran’s new security chief says neighbours who join US economic war will be considered ‘enemies’

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Hardliner Mohsen Rezaei also threatens American economic interests in first interview since appointment to supreme national security council

The new leader of Iran’s top security body has warned its neighbours against joining new US efforts to squeeze Tehran’s economy, and threatened US commercial interests in the region, as Donald Trump doubled down on his fanciful view that the strait of Hormuz was a new US territory.

Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline new leader of Iran’s supreme national security council, told state television that Iran would target oil-shipping routes out the Gulf – alternatives to the strait of Hormuz – if its neighbours joined what he called the “economic war” waged by the US. Those neighbours would be “considered an enemy” and “we will target their interests”, he said.

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Hanson forced to intervene after One Nation MP says party’s migration target ‘not too different’ from Labor’s

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David Farley says party wants 100,000 migrant rural workers in addition to the 130,000 migration target it considers the ‘true’ number

The One Nation MP David Farley says the minor party’s net migration target is “not too different” to Labor’s, forcing his leader to issue an urgent clarification amid rising confusion over the policy.

It is the second time Pauline Hanson has had to issue a correction after the member for Farrer seemed to contradict One Nation’s restrictive approach to immigration.

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Sydney Marathon admits ‘unfortunate error’ as finisher’s medal depicts Munich stadium as race highlight

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‘Landmarks’ side of the medal features the Allianz Arena in German city rather than Allianz Stadium in Sydney

In a week’s time, the proud runners finishing the Sydney Marathon will receive a medal showing the landmarks they have just sped past – plus one they definitely didn’t.

In what organisers have admitted was an “unfortunate error”, a stadium in Munich, Germany, was erroneously etched on to the event’s participation medal instead of a local Sydney landmark.

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