General news

• ‘We had to break the status quo’: UK campaign seeks to mobilise Muslim vote

  20-05-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Muslim Vote aims to list candidates that align with it on foreign policy, NHS and educationA campaign group hoping to mobilise Muslim communities in the lead-up to the general election has said it wants to ensure their votes are “taken seriously” and it aims to produce a list of candidates they endorse later this year.The Muslim Vote, a campaign group, is hoping to encourage as many of the 3.9 million Muslims in the UK to vote in the upcoming general election, focusing on constit
  
  Read more

• US Women’s Open golf 2024: fourth round – live

  02-06-2024 23:52 via theguardian.com
  
  Updates from final round at Lancaster Country ClubOfficial live leaderboard | Day three reportGet in touch! You can contact Scott on emailAn unforced error by the leader Minjee Lee on 3. From the first cut to the left of the fairway, just 50 yards out, she carves her wedge into sand to the right of the green. Then a blast out races hysterically across the dancefloor and nearly ends up in a bunker on the other side. The ball stops in the fringe but she’ll have a testing up-and-down to limit
  
  Read more

• John Swinney says SNP facing its biggest challenge for years

  02-06-2024 23:46 via theguardian.com
  
  Leader launches party’s election campaign as polling suggests it will pay high price for recent woesJohn Swinney has described July’s general election as “the biggest challenge the SNP has had for years” as he used his party’s official campaign launch to repeatedly attack Labour, which is threatening the nationalists in dozens of seats across Scotland.Swinney, who told the rally of more than 200 activists and former MPs in Glasgow that it was a “surprise&rdquo
  
  Read more

• With policy battle lines set, Sunak and Starmer prepare for TV combat

  02-06-2024 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  With PM as underdog hoping to use TV debates for comeback, Labour leader is also preparing for election to turn personalWhen the history of Keir Starmer’s resurrection of the Labour party comes to be written, one of the most important turning points will be the decision to start playing the man, not the ball, when it came to Boris Johnson and Partygate.Rishi Sunak’s key weak spot in the leader debates this election is his career as a hedge fund partner at the time of the financial cr
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Gareth Southgate coy over Jack Grealish’s Euro 2024 place for England

  02-06-2024 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Manager still to decide midfield options before Serbia openerSouthgate said Luke Shaw has ‘good chance’ of being fit for finalsGareth Southgate has refused to give Jack Grealish assurances over his Euro 2024 place and has cast doubt over Harry Maguire being fit for ­England’s opening game.Southgate, who was more optimis­tic about Luke Shaw’s chances of recovering from injury for the tournament, is putting together his final preparations this week. England&rsq
  
  Read more

• D-Day: The Unheard Tapes review – TV so good it’s worth the BBC licence fee on its own

  02-06-2024 23:00 via theguardian.com
  
  This commemoration of the Normandy landings uses actors lip-syncing over period interviews to stunning effect. It poignantly keeps these soldiers’ memories alive Eighty years ago this month a young bloke from south London called Wally Parr was floating through the night in a flimsy wooden glider a few thousand feet over the Channel. He wasn’t alone. Jammed alongside him in one of six such craft were his mates from the British army’s 6th Airborne Division. On the night before th
  
  Read more

• French Open’s ‘prime-time’ slot is the graveyard shift no player wants | Tumaini Carayol

  02-06-2024 22:47 via theguardian.com
  
  Novak Djokovic’s 3.07am finish on Sunday morning showed yet again tennis needs to do more to look after players and fansAs another messy, rainy day at Roland Garros began to unfold on Saturday afternoon, it gradually became clear that things were taking a left turn. With certain third-round matches to be finished, the French Open organisers opted to move the uncompleted contest between Zizou Bergs and Grigor Dimitrov to Court Philippe-Chatrier before Novak Djokovic’s night session ma
  
  Read more

• Rob Burrow was a rugby league giant and a most extraordinary man | Donald McRae

  02-06-2024 22:44 via theguardian.com
  
  A flickering fire burned inside the inspirational former Leeds scrum-half despite the gravity of his MND diagnosis I first interviewed Rob Burrow in April 2021. Rob, by then, could no longer talk and, in his wheelchair, he could barely move. Motor neurone disease had made him a prisoner in his own body. I was anxious before we began because it seemed an impossible task. Rob, however, had spent much of his life proving that he could overcome preconceptions.He was the rugby league giant who,
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• PM must face questions about hedge fund at heart of financial crash, says Labour

  02-06-2024 22:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Keir Starmer aims to turn spotlight on Sunak’s career before politics in lead up to first general election TV debateRishi Sunak must face questions about the fortune he earned at a hedge fund which engineered a deal at the heart of the financial crash, Labour has said, as it prepares to launch its first major attack on the prime minister ahead of the election debates.The party aims to turn the spotlight on Sunak’s time before politics in the days before the first TV debate between th
  
  Read more

• Cancer rates among under-50s in UK have risen 24% since 1995, figures show

  02-06-2024 22:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Increase sharper than in any age group and likely linked to obesity levels, junk food and inactivity, say expertsThe number of people under 50 being diagnosed with cancer in the UK has risen 24% in two decades, a sharper increase than any other age group, according to figures experts say are likely linked to soaring obesity levels, cheap junk food and inactivity.Early onset incidence rates grew from 132.9 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 164.6 in 2019, analysis of data shows. About 35,000 under-50s
  
  Read more

• More than 100 artists tell Starmer to halt arms sales to Israel if he becomes PM

  02-06-2024 21:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Letter signatories from Steve Coogan to Paloma Faith urge Keir Starmer to ‘take stand’ for human rights and international lawActors including Steve Coogan, Miriam Margolyes and Juliet Stevenson have joined forces with musicians, writers and directors in calling on Keir Starmer to halt arm sales to Israel if elected prime minister.The singer Paloma Faith, the film-maker Mike Leigh and the author Michael Rosen are among the more than 100 celebrities who have signed a joint letter, coor
  
  Read more

• Final results in seismic South Africa election confirm ANC has lost majority

  02-06-2024 20:56 via theguardian.com
  
  ANC says demands that President Cyril Ramaphosa must step down is ‘no-go area’ as rival Jacob Zuma stokes fears of violenceFinal results from Wednesday’s seismic South Africa elections have confirmed that the African National Congress (ANC) party has lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of full democracy, firing the starting gun on unprecedented coalition talks.The ANC, which led the fight to free South Africa from apartheid, won just 159 seats in the 400-member nat
  
  Read more

• Rob Burrow – a life in pictures

  02-06-2024 20:50 via theguardian.com
  
  A look back at the life of the rugby league star who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2019 and has died aged 41 Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• UK within British empire is like last person left at a party, says David Olusoga

  02-06-2024 20:24 via theguardian.com
  
  Historian tells Hay festival audience that Britain needs to ‘liberate itself and have independence day from its own history’The historian David Olusoga has said the UK is the one country left in the British empire as he likened it to being the last oblivious person at a party.Asked at Hay festival on Sunday whether the British empire had ended, the broadcaster said: “There’s one country left in the British empire that needs to liberate itself and have its independence day
  
  Read more

• Italian village with 46 residents has 30 local election candidates

  02-06-2024 20:21 via theguardian.com
  
  Two-thirds of Ingria near Turin are competing for positions including a mother and son in rival camps The last time Igor De Santis ran for mayor in Ingria, a tiny village surrounded by forests and mountains near Turin, he won an easy landslide victory. But he faces a tough challenge in his bid for a fourth mandate, after his mother joined a rival camp.Ingria, one of the smallest villages in Italy, is home to 46 inhabitants. A further 26 people, registered to vote from abroad, make up the elector
  
  Read more

• Jemma Reekie and Laura Muir storm to Diamond League victories in Stockholm

  02-06-2024 20:11 via theguardian.com
  
  Reekie continues fine season for Britain’s 800m runnersFellow Scot Muir kicks to convincing 1500m winJemma Reekie continued a sensational season of 800m running for Britain’s women as she led home four sub-two minute runners at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.Reekie’s run of 1:57:79 means she now has the fourth- and ninth-best times of the year worldwide, in a top-10 list bookended by British runners, with Keely Hodgkinson’s 1:55:78 leading the way in 2024 and 17-
  
  Read more

• Couple finds safe stuffed with $100,000 cash while magnet fishing in New York

  02-06-2024 19:51 via theguardian.com
  
  James Kane and Barbie Agostini pull up safe in Queens park with bundles of $100 bills inside and are told by police they can keep itA New York City couple who were “magnet fishing” in a lake caught more than they had bargained for when they pulled out a safe that had $100,000 cash inside.James Kane and Barbie Agostini tossed a line with a strong magnet attached to the end into a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on 31 May, Friday afternoon. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on taxing billionaires: we need to talk about the super-rich | Editorial

  02-06-2024 19:30 via theguardian.com
  
  G20 countries will discuss proposals to make the world’s wealthiest individuals pay more towards funding public goods. The debate is overdueIn his book The Society of Equals, the leading French sociologist Pierre Rosanvallon identifies the rise of the global super-rich as inimical to a shared social order. “The secession of the wealthy,” writes Prof Rosanvallon, means that “the richest sliver of the population now lives in a world unto itself”.Tax avoidance is perha
  
  Read more

• Oil alliance Opec+ extends crude production curbs into 2025

  02-06-2024 19:28 via theguardian.com
  
  Ministers at Riyadh meeting agree daily limit of 2m barrels should be in place until end of next yearThe Opec+ group of oil producers have agreed to extend most of their production curbs into next year, in an attempt to shore up crude prices.After a ministerial meeting in Riyadh on Sunday, the Opec cartel and allies including Russia decided to extend a cut of 2m barrels a day until the end of 2025, rather than ending it at the end of 2024. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on social media harms: the tech giants must be more open | Editorial

  02-06-2024 19:25 via theguardian.com
  
  The online safety bill was a start, but campaigners are right to demand more, especially in situations where a child has has diedBereaved parents of children whose deaths have been linked to social media are crucial voices in the debate over how to ensure that under-18s are not harmed by their experiences online. Two years ago, a coroner’s verdict that the death of Molly Russell was contributed to by “the negative effects of online content”, including algorithmically delivered
  
  Read more

• Rob Burrow, former Leeds scrum-half, dies at 41, years after MND diagnosis

  02-06-2024 19:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Friendship with Kevin Sinfield brought MND to wider attentionFormer rugby league player had become ill in the past weekRob Burrow, the former rugby league player who came to national attention following his diagnosis with motor neurone disease, has died at the age of 41 following a short illness.Burrow, one of the modern era’s great players who won every domestic honour available throughout a stellar playing career with Leeds as well as being capped by both England and Great Britain, was d
  
  Read more

• Dog breeds must be ‘rebooted’ to halt health problems, says expert

  02-06-2024 19:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Prof Clare Rusbridge calls for careful cross-breeding to introduce new genetic materialDog breeds must be “rebooted” through careful cross-breeding to save them from ingrained health problems, a leading expert has said.From French bulldogs with spinal and respiratory issues to cavalier King Charles spaniels with skull malformations and heart problems, many breeds are prone to specific disorders. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Revealed: Russian legal foundation linked to Kremlin activities in Europe

  02-06-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Leaked internal documents show Pravfond has spent millions of euros to finance propaganda and legal campaignsLeaked internal documents have exposed the activities of a Russian state-backed legal defence foundation that European intelligence agencies and analysts say is in fact a Kremlin influence operation active in 48 countries across Europe and around the world.Internal documents from the Fund for Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad (Pravfond) indicate
  
  Read more

• Finn Russell to conduct Bath’s final quest in showdown with Saints’ Smith

  02-06-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Scotland playmaker has enjoyed success at Twickenham and will be instrumental in club’s hopes of a first title since 1996The finale to the English club season almost feels like a throwback to another era. On Saturday Bath will seek to claim their first league title since 1996 while Northampton’s solitary Premiership title was won 10 years ago. Add in a near-capacity crowd for a domestic Twickenham final – attendances have been on the wane in recent times – and it has all
  
  Read more

• Yvette Cooper says she expects net migration to fall ‘swiftly’ under Labour

  02-06-2024 18:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Shadow home secretary stops short of setting target, saying Conservatives have failed when they have done soYvette Cooper has said she expects net migration to the Uk to fall “swiftly” under a Labour government, but refused to say by how much.The shadow home secretary told broadcasters on Sunday that it was clear net immigration must come down. She stopped short of setting a target, however, saying the Conservatives had failed when they had done so. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• California firefighters battle wind-driven wildfire near San Francisco

  02-06-2024 18:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Two fire workers injured after Corral Fire, which began Saturday afternoon,spread overnight east of San FranciscoCalifornia firefighters aided by aircraft battled a wind-driven wildfire that began Saturday and continued burning early Sunday morning in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay Area and central California, authorities said.The Corral Fire began Saturday afternoon near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96km ) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the ci
  
  Read more

• Ella Baron on President Zelenskiy’s call for more western aid – cartoon

  02-06-2024 18:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Simon Armitage: Poets can fight climate crisis by making us spellbound by nature

  02-06-2024 18:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Writer tells Hay festival about his new book, Blossomise, and his hopes to inspire people to preserve the natural worldPoets can help fight climate breakdown by making us “spellbound, full of wonder and beguiled” by nature, the poet laureate has said.Simon Armitage, who pledged to dedicate his writing and thinking to environmental issues when he was appointed poet laureate in 2019, has written a new book of poems called Blossomise, which he hopes will remind readers of the beauty of
  
  Read more

• UK care agencies accused of exploiting foreign workers caught in debt traps

  02-06-2024 18:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Experts raise alarm over ‘national scandal’ that has hallmarks of trafficking and modern slavery‘He didn’t have a contract for me’: the Indian careworkers who paid agents to work in BritainWhat are the problems with the UK visa system for care work?British social care agencies have been accused of exploiting foreign workers, leaving people living on the breadline as they struggle to pay off debts run up while trying to secure jobs that fail to materialise
  
  Read more

• AI hardware firm Nvidia unveils next-gen products at Taiwan tech expo

  02-06-2024 18:28 via theguardian.com
  
  CEO Jensen Huang tells packed stadium in Taipei ‘next Industrial Revolution has begun’ Nvidia has unveiled new products and plans to accelerate the advance of artificial intelligence, with the AI hardware company’s chief executive telling a packed stadium in Taipei on Sunday that “the next Industrial Revolution has begun”.Jensen Huang is in Taiwan for the island’s leading tech expo, Computex, along with the CEOs of some of the world’s biggest semiconduct
  
  Read more

Follow @generalnews_UK on Twitter!